Today, Chinese GPU manufacturer Moore Threads released new v290.100 drivers for its MTT S80 and S70 GPUs, boasting impressive performance improvements in select titles (via ITHome). The latest update addresses commonly reported bugs and stability issues across games and applications such as Unigine Valley, Rhinoceros 3D, and several local applications. The updated drivers are available for download on their website and support Windows 11/10 and Linux.
Driver v290.100 promises optimizations for A Plague Tale: Requiem, Death Stranding, Infinity Nikki, Super Power Continent, The King of Fighters XV, Sonic Forces, Steel Rats, Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact. Bear with us, as a few of the aforementioned names may have been mistranslated.
Moore Threads claims a massive 120% increase in average FPS in A Plague Tale Requiem, followed by a 50% performance boost in Death Stranding. Let's be honest: these aren't mainstream titles anymore; some are incredibly niche. However, the two big shots from HoYoverse could draw some attention to these GPUs in the local market, though exact specifics or numbers haven't been shared.
The new drivers also fix several reported issues, including display anomalies in Rhino 8.11, crashes in Shadertoy, Rainbow Six: Siege, Devil May Cry 5, Unigine Valley, and several problems associated with the PES control center. However, a few unresolved bugs remain: unresponsive behavior in Blender and stability issues with local software.
Since launch, Moore Threads has been hard at work delivering driver optimizations for its GPUs. Truth be told, we aren't sure if we should take these numbers at face value. Despite these cards' raw horsepower, software, and certain architectural limitations are likely holding them back. Market share makes a huge difference, as it wouldn't make sense for developers to expend valuable resources to optimize their software for these GPUs.
Even Intel's Xe-based Alchemist suffered greatly from lackluster driver support and an immature architecture at launch. Battlemage mostly fixed these problems, with the Intel Arc B580 standing as a great budget GPU, rivaling Nvidia's RTX 4060 and even the potentially soon-to-launch RTX 5060. The silver lining is that due to the 16GB frame buffer, these GPUs reportedly show "excellent" performance in AI inference tasks. It's suggested that DeepSeek's R1 model runs inference not on Nvidia's Hopper/Blackwell chips but on Huawei's homegrown Ascend AI accelerators. Still, despite these recent strides, it might take years for Chinese hardware and software to match Western technology.
