Intel Xe vs. i915 Driver Performance On Linux 6.19 For Arc Alchemist GPUs

Written by Michael Larabel in Display Drivers on 28 December 2025 at 11:10 AM EST. Page 3 of 5. 20 Comments.
Unvanquished benchmark with settings of Resolution: 3840 x 2160, Effects Quality: Medium. Xe Driver was the fastest.
Unvanquished benchmark with settings of Resolution: 3840 x 2160, Effects Quality: High. Xe Driver was the fastest.
Unvanquished benchmark with settings of Resolution: 3840 x 2160, Effects Quality: Ultra. Xe Driver was the fastest.

With some of the Unvanquished game runs there were just very slight improvements in going for the modern Xe driver rather than i915.

Xonotic benchmark with settings of Resolution: 3840 x 2160, Effects Quality: High. Xe Driver was the fastest.
Xonotic benchmark with settings of Resolution: 3840 x 2160, Effects Quality: Ultra. Xe Driver was the fastest.
Xonotic benchmark with settings of Resolution: 3840 x 2160, Effects Quality: Ultimate. Xe Driver was the fastest.

Similarly, not much of a difference for the Xonotic game that is rather lax by today's graphics standards/

yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: OpenGL 3.x, AF: Off, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: OpenGL 3.x, AF: Off, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 3840 x 2160. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: OpenGL 3.x, AF: Off, MSAA: On, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: OpenGL 3.x, AF: Off, MSAA: On, Resolution: 3840 x 2160. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: OpenGL 3.x, AF: On, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: OpenGL 3.x, AF: On, MSAA: On, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: Off, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: Off, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 3840 x 2160. i915 Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: Off, MSAA: On, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. i915 Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: Off, MSAA: On, Resolution: 3840 x 2160. i915 Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: On, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. Xe Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: On, MSAA: Off, Resolution: 3840 x 2160. i915 Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: On, MSAA: On, Resolution: 1920 x 1080. i915 Driver was the fastest.
yquake2 benchmark with settings of Renderer: Vulkan, AF: On, MSAA: On, Resolution: 3840 x 2160. i915 Driver was the fastest.

Interesting for the YQuake2 game there were advantages to using the Xe driver in some areas but in a few of the runs some significant performance regressions when switching over to the Xe kernel driver.

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