"Thank you for making games! Intel is a strong supporter of game development, and we've assembled all our best information to help you get your game running great on Intel hardware. Intel® HD Graphics and Intel® IrisTM/IrisTM Pro Graphics parts are some of the most commonly used graphics solutions in PCs worldwide (see http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/). By following the advice on these pages and using the tools we provide, you'll ensure that your game is able to be enjoyed by millions of gamers. We want you to be successful! Get what you need here, and if you can't find something, let us know in our game developer forum." - Aaron Coday, Director, Visual Computing Engineering, Intel Corporation
Intel wants to help game developers optimize their programs so they run, look, and play great on the developers' platforms of choice. Intel offers documentation, tools, code samples, case studies and events to help with development and optimization. The below lists are provided to quickly direct you to information of interest.
- Documentation
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- Code Samples and
OpenCL Code Samples - Optimization Tools
- Android Related
- DirectX 12 Related
- Case Studies
- Advanced Graphics Features
- Presentations from GDC 2015
- Upcoming Events
- Achievement Unlocked Program
Developer Guides and Reference Manuals
Intel provides comprehensive graphics API usage guides for our hardware, going back to 2011, as well as other documentation:
- Intel Graphics API Developer’s Guide: :5th-gen-core; 4th-gen-core;3rd-gen-core; 2nd-gen-core
- Intel Graphics for Linux* Open Source Programmer’s Reference Manuals (PRM) - see https://01.org/linuxgraphics/documentation-link
- Architecture Guides for Intel Processor Graphics:
Gen 8 Graphics (Broadwell); Gen 7.5 Graphics (Haswell); Gen 7 Graphics (IvyBridge) - OpenCL Optimization Guides for Intel Processor Graphics: 2014, or 2012 ;
- Chart matching Intel® processor graphics (by name) to processor number
- Chart matching Intel processor family to Intel® Graphics designations and guides.
- Drivers for Intel hardware including processor graphics at the Intel download center
- Intel SIMD instruction sets: https://software.intel.com/sites/landingpage/IntrinsicsGuide/
Code Samples (https://software.intel.com/gamecode)
Considered the most helpful pieces by many developers, Intel offers a wide variety of code samples. Here's some links but be sure to see OpenCL code samples below.
- Code Samples at the Intel Game Developer Community https://software.intel.com/en-us/gamedev/code-samples
- Game Companies Speed Up Development with Intel® Sample Code
- Adaptive Volumetric Shadow Map
- Conservative Morphological Anti-Aliasing (CMAA) - March 2014 Update
- Order-Independent Transparency Approximation with Pixel Synchronization
- Software Occlusion Culling Update 2
- Using SIMD Technologies on Intel® Architecture to Speed Up Game Code
Tools for Optimizing Games and Graphics for Intel® Processors
At Intel, we believe we have created the best processing hardware for computing. We know that it's not always easy to harness that processing power, so we've built powerful software tools for analyzing your application on Intel hardware. Our best tools for graphics are collected here.
Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA)
This tool covers OpenCL and DirectX and shows high-level performance metrics for the CPU. You can capture a frame for detailed analysis and on-the-fly tweaking. Intel GPA Platform View can show you detailed interaction between the CPU and graphics. Articles and Guides on Intel GPA include:
- Graphics Performance Analyzers: Which Tools Are Available on My Platform?
- Optimizing Without Breaking a Sweat
- Intel GPA 2015 R1 - OpenGL splits from DirectX - and it's all free!
- Getting Started with Graphics Performance Analyzers 2015 R1 for Windows* Host
- Tuning Tips for compute offload to Intel(R) Processor Graphics
- Graphics Performance Analyzers FAQ
- Graphics Performance Analyzers Documentation
Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE 2015
Performance analysis tool targeted for users developing serial and multithreaded applications. The tool is delivered as VTune Amplifier XE Performance Profiler and VTune Amplifier for Systems Performance Profiler and Intel Energy Profiler
Analyzing Applications Using Intel® HD Graphics
Intel® Integrated Native Developer Experience (Intel® INDE)
- Analyzing and Optimizing Performance of Windows* Store Apps
- Analyzing Applications Using Intel® HD Graphics
- System Analyzer
- Performance Promise of OpenCV* 3.0 and Intel® INDE OpenCV
Intel® C++ Compiler 15.0
- Overview: Intel® Graphics Technology
- Initiating an Offload on Intel® Graphics Technology
- Programming for Intel® Graphics Technology
- Vectorizing for Intel® Graphics Technology
OpenCL Optimization
At Intel, we know that OpenCL is for more than just image manipulation. Here's our best resources for game developers who want to leverage OpenCL.
- OpenCL™ Drivers and Runtimes for Intel® Architecture
- Basic Sample of OpenCL™ Host Code
- Simple Optimizations of OpenCL™ Code (Linux and Windows)
- Optimizing Simple OpenCL™ Kernels
- Optimization Options
- Reference Manual: OpenCL™ Runtime and Compiler for Intel® Graphics
- Profiling the Intel® INDE OpenCV Applications
OpenCL Code Samples
- Tutorial: Intel® Processor Graphics Optimization Image Processing sample based on the Sobel Filter algorithm
- Sharing Surfaces between OpenCL™ and OpenGL* 4.3 on Intel® Processor Graphics using implicit synchronization
- Guide Your Heterogenous Programming Decisions with Intel® Graphics Processor Performance Attributes in GPUInfo
- SGEMM for Intel® Processor Graphics
OpenGL (Android)
- Graphics Performance Analyzers for Android*
- Some Helpful Tips For Graphics Analysis and Optimization on Android*
- Unity* Editor Optimizations from Unity* Optimization Guide for x86 Android*
- Sample Codes for Video 3D on Android
- Efficient Order-Independent Transparency on Android* Using Fragment Shader Ordering
Unity
DirectX* 12
- Introduction to Resource Binding in Microsoft* DirectX* 12
- Efficient Rendering With DirectX 12 on intel Graphics
- Resource Sharing - DXVA* and Direct3D* with Intel® SDK for OpenCL™ Applications Code Samples
- Direct3D* 12 - Console API Efficiency & Performance on PCs
- An Overview of Direct3D* 12 Part 1 of 12 parts, see links within the article for the rest
- Direct3D* 12 - Console API Efficiency & Performance on PCs
Case Studies
Many PC game developers have already had success using our tools to improve their games' performance. For some, we've written about what challenges they faced and what solutions they found. We hope these case studies will be helpful for your own efforts. Maybe we'll be writing about your game next! https://software.intel.com/en-us/gamedev/learn
- Optimizing Assassin’s Creed® Rogue for Intel® HD Graphics
- Adobe* Optimizes with OpenCL™ and Intel® Graphics
- Using Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers to Optimize Splinter Cell*: Blacklist*
- Optimizing XuanYuan* with Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzer on Intel® HD Graphics
- Optimizing Without Breaking a Sweat (Dreamworks Animation Studio)
- Edge Detection Based Post Processing In Warlords of Draenor (GDC presentation by Blizzard and Intel®)
Presentations from GDC2015
Upcoming events- https://software.intel.com/en-us/game-dev/events
Achievement Unlocked: Site and Q&A
For more info about game development on Intel processor graphics, visit the Intel® game development community. There you’ll find useful references for everything from multithreading to audio. If you have more questions, including driver questions, head to the forums. If you can’t find the answer to your question above, you can visit the Intel® HD Graphics support page.