Overview

• Intel’s Arc graphics driver version 32.0.101.6987 introduces a Shared GPU Memory Override control that lets users manually allocate system RAM to built-in Arc iGPUs on select Core Ultra processors.
• The override permits dedicating as much as 87% of system memory to VRAM and includes targeted optimizations claiming up to a 6% uplift in path-tracing games like Battlefield 6, Mafia: The Old Country and Doom: The Dark Ages.
• Release notes state support for Core Ultra Series 1 (Meteor Lake) and Series 2 (Arrow Lake) but Intel’s knowledge base and user reports indicate reliable operation only on Arrow Lake systems.
• The setting is exposed in the Intel Graphics Software on Windows 10 and Windows 11, applies only to integrated Arc GPUs, and requires substantial RAM (typically 16 GB or more) plus a reboot to activate.
• Allocating large shares of RAM to the GPU can improve gaming and local AI workloads but risks starving the CPU of memory, increasing paging latency and raising power draw on laptops.