4th Gen Intel Processors Lose DirectX 12 Support; see list of affected CPUs

Anyone running a 4th generation Intel Core processor may be unhappy to know that they will not be able to run DirectX 12 based applications starting with graphics driver version 15.40.44.5107. It appears that there is a potential security vulnerability that could allow rogues to increase privileges on such processors.

Intel Core 4th Gen processors, also known as Haswell, were released more than eight years ago and received an update less than a year later. In 2018, while facing 32 lawsuits because of the Meltdown and Specter vulnerabilities, it released corrective patches for that CPU. Despite being relatively old, Intel still supports it in legacy mode.

Disabling DirectX 12 API support, according to Intel, comes to mitigate the risks of a potential security issue affecting several 4th generation Intel processors. Affected processors include most of the Intel Core 4th Gen processor lineup, including the popular i7-4790K and i5-4690K. The full list includes:

• 4th Generation Intel Core Processors with Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200
• 4th Generation Intel Core Processors with Intel Iris Graphics 5100
• 4th Generation Intel Core Processors with Intel HD Graphics 5000/4600/4400/4200
• Intel Pentium and Celeron processors with Intel HD Graphics based on 4th generation Intel Core processor

Those who use a dedicated GPU shouldn’t worry. However, if you want to run DirectX 12-based applications and games using the iGPU of these processors, Intel says you will need to download graphics driver 15.40.42.5063 or older.

All of these processors feature iGPUs based on Intel’s 7th Gen GPU architecture, but it seems that the problem lies elsewhere. Some of Intel’s 3rd generation CPUs also use iGPUs based on this same architecture, but they are not included in the list.

Has your CPU been affected by the loss of support? What is your opinion on the subject? Let us know in the comments!