Intel moves 6th to 10th Gen Core CPU iGPU support to the legacy software branch to segment the company’s graphics drivers
The recent Windows 31.0.101.2111 driver, located on Intel’s support website, announces that the company has chosen to move Atom, Pentium, Celeron, and any graphics processors between the 6th and 10 Gen Cores to the company’s legacy support. When the 31.0.101.3222 drivers were published, the company felt it appropriate to transfer Comet Lake, Kaby Lake, and Skylake processor support to the legacy branch. The drivers focused on integrated graphics. Starting today, Intel will bundle the current and legacy drivers into one single driver package for Windows, except for the 11th and 12th Gen Core processors, the DG1 series, and Arc GPUs. While it is an intelligent decision and perfect for end-users, hopefully, the company can fully integrate all legacy and current branches into one single branch, limiting the amount of confusion from Intel users. The company states that “critical fixes and security vulnerabilities” will only be the company’s concern for that chosen legacy hardware. Updates will roll out quarterly instead of monthly or even day-zero game updates as newer generations receive. There may also be fewer updates to drivers falling in the 6th to 10th Gen Core lines transferring to legacy status. Critical updates are anticipated to still come at appropriate times, significantly if it impacts security or failing operations. Support for Skylake through Comet Lake’s iGPUs will still be available within the single driver for Windows but will not see any other minor changes or fixes. Michael Larabel of the website Phoronix notes that the move by the company is not unexpected as he reported, “… about Intel’s Compute-Runtime beginning to disable older Intel generations of support with Windows builds just days ago.” Linux users have less to feel affected by Intel’s iGPU support will continue within the main Linux kernel and Mesa Vulkan and OpenGL graphics drivers. Larabel continues to note that most older integrated graphics by Intel are still available within Linux.
