Intel's new technology could help games load up to 37 times faster.

Those who own Intel Core Ultra 2/3 series CPUs and Intel Arc B series GPUs will benefit from the latest Intel graphics driver update.

Intel's new Shader distribution service can significantly reduce game load times for users of Intel Core Ultra 2/3 series CPUs and Intel Arc B-series GPUs. This is because the new download uses pre-compiled shaders instead of waiting for the game to load shaders automatically. Average load times are reduced by about 2-3 times, depending on the gamer's hardware, but in some cases, it can be up to 37 times faster.

While Intel's Arc GPU options aren't exactly the best graphics cards on the list, the Intel Arc B580 has proven to be a pretty good option for its price range. Meanwhile, the integrated GPUs in the Intel Core Ultra 200 and 300 series processors have steadily improved, to the point where you can totally play games on them. Now, with this latest feature, they even have an advantage over the fastest GPU options from AMD and Nvidia.

Intel reduces the waiting time at this stage by pre-loading these games onto its own servers and compiling them into packages suitable for use with its specific hardware. When your Intel GPU driver detects that you have this hardware and one of the supported games, it can download the pre-compiled code, instead of waiting for your system to perform that laborious task.

Intel's need to take all these steps for each hardware unit and each game means that currently only a limited number of games are supported, but this list includes some big titles like Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and Starfield. You can see the full list of supported games below.

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• Black Myth: Wukong
• Borderlands 4
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
• Cyberpunk 2077
• God of War Ragnarök
• Gotham Knights
• Hogwarts Legacy
• NBA 2K26
• Starfield
• STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
• The Outer Worlds 2

The performance boost you experience will vary significantly depending on the game and your hardware, but for Intel Arc B580 users, you can expect load times reduced by 1.3x to 3.6x in most games, with the exception of one game. Meanwhile, Intel Core Ultra 9 288V users can expect speeds up by 1.3x to 14x in most of these games, and Intel Core Ultra X9 388H users will receive speeds up by 1.4x to 5.3x.

To use this new feature, simply download the latest version of the Intel graphics driver, 32.0.101.8626 WHQL.

Intel's pre-compiled shaders typically only affect the first time you load a game, as once the shaders have been compiled, they are ready for the next load. However, driver and game updates can trigger a new compilation cycle, and this service will intervene to speed up the process, provided Intel has kept its own updates up-to-date.