Crimson Desert officially receives Intel Arc GPU support and XeSS 3 compatibility 23 days after launch

With the latest Intel Arc driver update released a few days ago, Crimson Desert finally started launching on Intel Arc GPUs, though with visible artifacts on faces and corrupted terrain, making it playable at best. Before that, the game launched on March 19 without Arc support, with Pearl Abyss advising affected users to seek refunds. It was a rough start for Intel Arc and handheld owners who were missing out entirely.

Now, three weeks after launch, Patch 1.03.00 has officially added Intel Arc GPU support on PC. In the Graphics & Settings section of the release notes, the dev team has confirmed the addition and noted that the experience should continue to improve through ongoing optimizations in future updates. The patch also adds Intel XeSS 3.0 and XeSS Frame Generation as upscaling options to the game.

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Pearl Abyss has already flagged known issues for Arc-A series cards in the patch notes. According to the developers, Arc-A series users may encounter no display output with XeSS 3.0 or XeSS Frame Generation enabled, A770 owners can still hit crashes when using XeSS, and A750 users may still experience crashes in Hernand city.

Crimson Desert has been a big success for Pearl Abyss, but it is no secret that the studio has run into its fair share of issues along the way. The backlash over AI-generated artwork and the complete absence of Intel Arc support at launch both fueled community frustration. But the team has been quick to act on feedback. Replacing AI art with hand-drawn paintings and pushing out full Arc GPU support are just a few of the many reasons the game continues to hit sales milestones.

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That said, Arc A and B-series GPU owners and MSI handheld users should now be able to experience the open world as the protagonist, Kliff. XeSS Frame Generation support is still relatively uncommon across PC releases, so expect to run into the issues flagged above. The game should run considerably smoother than before, though.

Gamers on Arc-A and B-series GPUs and MSI handheld owners should now be able to enjoy the vast open-world title and the adventures of Kliff. Features like XeSS Frame Generation support are still not common across PC releases, so you can expect to run into the aforementioned issues. But the overall game should run much more smoothly now than before.