Hello,
After recent War Thunder updates (especially after 2024/2025 major content patches), the game has become almost unplayable on my device using Intel Iris Xe graphics. This issue did not exist before and started happening only in recent versions.
🔧 My system specifications:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-1360P
- GPU: Intel Iris Xe (integrated graphics)
- RAM: 16 GB DDR5
- OS: Windows 11
- Game client: Steam version (installed on D:)
- Renderer: DirectX 11 (Vulkan disabled)
💥 The issue:
- At first, the game runs normally with decent performance (around 40–50 FPS).
- After entering a match or staying in the hangar for a few minutes:
- CPU and RAM usage suddenly spike to 100% (confirmed in Task Manager).
- Game starts freezing or crashing.
- aces.exe uses more than 12GB of memory in some cases.
- Changing settings (including
config.blk) and lowering all graphics options does NOT help. - Enabling “compatibility mode” / “low-end GPU support” only slightly delays the crash.
- This behavior was not present in previous updates.
🧪 What I’ve tried:
- Custom config.blk (lowered LOD, renderResolutionScale=0.85, etc.)
- Disabled all shadows, water, clouds, etc.
- Increased virtual memory (swap file up to 16GB on D:)
- Updated and rolled back Intel GPU drivers (tried 31.0.101.5186 and older 30.x versions)
- Disabled background apps, overlays (Steam, Xbox Game Bar, Defender)
- Tried both DirectX 11 and Vulkan
Nothing prevents the eventual crash or freeze.
🧭 Conclusion:
This seems like a compatibility or memory leak issue specific to Intel Iris Xe graphics.
I kindly ask that developers investigate this issue, as the game used to be fully playable on this hardware before the recent updates.
If needed, I can provide:
- A dxdiag report
- Memory dumps during crash
- Config.blk and logs
Thank you for your attention, and I hope this can be resolved in future patches.
Best regards,
[a concerned Iris Xe player]