Vulkan Drivers and Iris Xe-The Last of Us part 2

[PepoIRISXEl29]

Hey Intel team and fellow users,

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to get The Last of Us Part II running properly on my laptop with Intel Iris Xe graphics, and after testing multiple driver versions and tweaking settings endlessly, I wanted to share everything I’ve found — and hopefully get Intel’s attention to fix this properly.

My Setup:
• GPU: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
• CPU: 17 1335u
• RAM: 8–16 GB
• OS: Windows 11 (fully updated)
• Game: The Last of Us Part II (2024 PC port)
• Driver tested:
• 30.0.101.3222 – Works best so far
• 101.4032, 4091, 5333 – All worse, either crash faster or break visuals

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What Actually Works:

Surprisingly, with driver 101.3222, the game looks and runs great. There’s no red screen, no broken lighting, and I can play on medium-high settings with decent FPS (~30–40). The game feels smooth, and even cutscenes run fine.

So this isn’t a performance issue. Iris Xe can handle the game. That’s the frustrating part — it works well when it’s not crashing.

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But Here’s the Problem:

Even with 101.3222, the game crashes randomly — usually after 10–30 minutes of gameplay. It’s always during something like:
• Entering a new zone
• Shader building
• Cutscene transitions

No error messages, just a straight crash to desktop.

And when I update to any newer driver (4032 and above), it actually gets worse:
• The red rendering bug comes back
• Crashes happen even faster
• Some versions don’t even let the game load properly

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What I’ve Already Tried:
• Clean driver installs using DDU
• Tweaking all game settings (low, capped FPS, no async compute, borderless windowed)
• Disabling shader cache
• Setting launch commands like -force-vulkan -noasynccompute
• Even reinstalling the OS and testing across multiple driver versions

Same result every time: 101.3222 is the only one that renders correctly, but even then it crashes eventually.

⸻

What This Tells Me:

This clearly isn’t a “your laptop isn’t good enough” situation. The GPU is handling the game fine, but the driver is not stable with Vulkan, at least on Iris Xe.

It feels like something is breaking in the Vulkan shader pipeline or memory handling. It’s probably something that’s already been fixed for Intel Arc, but not carried over to Iris Xe.

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What I’m Asking:

I’m not expecting miracles, but it would mean a lot if the Intel GPU team could:
1. Look into the Vulkan shader/pipeline stability on Iris Xe (not just Arc)
2. Fix the red rendering bug that reappears in newer drivers
3. Test big Vulkan games like this — The Last of Us Part II, RE4 Remake, Hogwarts Legacy, etc. — on your integrated GPUs, not just dedicated ones
4. If possible, backport the Arc Vulkan improvements to Iris Xe where relevant

⸻

Why It Matters:

There are thousands of us using laptops with Iris Xe who want to play modern games. The Last of Us Part II proves it’s possible — it looks and runs great when the driver doesn’t crash. But we’re stuck with an old driver (3222) just to get it working at all, and even that’s not stable.

Please don’t overlook Iris Xe just because Arc exists now. This chip is still in a ton of new laptops on the market.

⸻

I’d be happy to provide crash logs, screen recordings, or anything else if the team needs it. I really hope someone at Intel takes this seriously. This game is fully playable on Iris Xe — all we need is a stable driver.

Thanks for reading.

[PepoIRISXEl29]

ALSO HERE IT IS THE PROOF THAT IT WORKS PERFECTLY FINE LIKE HERES A RECORDING OF SEATTLE AREA THE MOST RESOURCE CONSUMING ONE BUT SINCE THE DRIVERS ARE LIKE SET TO 2,5 MIN AFTER THIS GAME CRASH EVEN THO YOU ARENT EVEN MOVING IT DOES BECUZ OF HOW VULKAN SPIKE UP THE DRIVER SO ITS FIXABLE INTEL JUST REVERT BACK THE THINGSS OF VULKAN RENDERING INTO THIS DRIVER AND JUST FIX THE VULKAN PIPELINE LIKE EVEN THO ANY AREA WHERE EVEN LITTLE RESOURCE IS RENDERED IT CRASHSES HERE THE PROOF THAT GAME WORKS PERFECTLY FINE ON ANY CHAPTER AND HERES THE ERROR

[PepoIRISXEl29]

I'm reposting this from other iris xe users (rafay) who kindly conducted all this investigation.

[ilayg1]

i dont wanna say something wrong but maybe force the game to launch with vulkan, i reinstalled the game since it didnt work so yeah i cant really check it.

[ilayg1]

oh sorry i didnt read

[rafay19]

hey can u repost this also check my post i orignally created this one if you can comment my post it would be helpful alot