Intel has gotten in the good habit of releasing timely GPU driver updates, the latest of which is billed as a "launch driver" for the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.
Similar to Nvidia's "Game Ready" drivers, Intel's launch drivers focus on specific games and features. In this case, the 25.20.100.6323 driver brings official support for the latest Windows 10 build. Intel actually started pushing it out a few days ago, just beating both Nvidia and AMD to the punch.
That's probably easier to do when you're only dealing with integrated graphics, but it's nice to see Intel taking driver releases seriously. After all, it's heading towards its first discrete GPU launch, currently scheduled for 2020. Timely driver updates are important to gamers, and Intel is on the right track in that regard.
As for this release, it's also listed as a launch driver for HDR support on laptops.
"Loaded with many visual enhancements, this WDDM 2.5 Windows 10 October 2018 Update driver introduces brilliant HDR10 on internal displays, enabling full quality HDR10 for video streaming, games, and content creation on both external and laptop displays. Support for Wide Color Gamut has been added for capable displays as well as improvements in EDR quality. This driver also introduces support for the DirectX 12 Shader Model 6.3 Compiler and improves hot plug audio synchronization between the Graphics and Audio drivers," Intel states in its release notes.
With regards to gaming, Intel says its newest GPU driver also delivers a performance boost to Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 (DX11 version) on 6th generation and newer Core processors. And on top of it all, it includes power optimizations intended to improve battery life.
Summed up, this is mostly of interest to laptop users, particularly those with an HDR display, though anyone running Intel's integrated graphics should nab this update. Go here to grab the driver.
