Intel's Deep Link Technology: Future Updates Quietly Halted
If you've been along for the ride of Intel's graphics, you may remember a bit of technology called Deep Link. It was touted as a smart solution for Intel CPUs and their Arc graphics to work together better. Well, it appears that the plug has been quietly pulled on future updates to Deep Link.
The news leaked without a huge official declaration. Instead, confirmation arrived when an Intel employee commented on a GitHub thread that Deep Link is "no longer actively maintained and will not be receiving future updates." This was after a user was having issues with making Deep Link work properly with OBS Studio, a leading streaming software.
So, What Deep Link Was Supposed to Do
Introduced sometime around the release of the Arc Alchemist GPUs in 2022 (albeit some of its features were talked about as far back as late 2020), Deep Link was intended to be more than a mere marketing term. The concept was to take advantage of both the CPU and the discrete GPU in an Intel platform to enhance performance in certain tasks. It's like urging cooperation between your computer's primary brain and its graphics behemoth.
It offered a collection of features, and they were:
- Dynamic Power Share: Shifting power from the CPU to the GPU wherever power was needed most.
- Hyper Encode: Utilizing multiple processing units to speed up video encoding.
- Stream Assist: Shifting streaming tasks to improve game performance.
- Additive AI (or Hyper Compute): Accelerating AI workloads using OpenVINO.
In effect, Intel marketed Deep Link as a method of "boosting gaming, content creation, and streaming." It needed an Intel machine with the appropriate CPU (like 11th gen or higher) and an Intel Arc GPU to make use of it.
Why the Silent Shutdown
While Deep Link looked so promising, there were sometimes users complaining about stability or getting it to work right in some programs over the years. Compatibility with newer generations of CPUs even came to seem to be a problem. Intel appears to have decided to shift its development focus elsewhere, rather than continuing to invest resources into keeping Deep Link current and compatible with newer software and hardware environments.
"Deep Link is not being developed any longer and will no longer be receiving updates in the future, so that there will be no updates to the features regardless of the state of how they work now."
- Zack-Intel, via GitHub
What Does This Do for Users
If you have an Intel platform that already utilizes Deep Link, the feature will still work for now. However, because Intel is no longer developing it, don't expect any bug fixes, performance improvements, or updates to keep it working with future drivers or software. Any issues that may be occurring will most likely never be fixed by Intel.
It is somewhat of an anticlimax for those who invested in the Intel ecosystem precisely because of the touted advantages of Deep Link. Although the technology had promise, its path to success appears to have reached a sudden and incongruous ending.
