The process of updating the firmware of a graphics card isn't something that users do very often. Still, it's helpful to know the requirements when the situation arises. One such scenario is updating the Graphics System Controller firmware of Intel Arc cards, which is only possible if you have the GPU paired with an AMD or Intel CPU.

This requirement was found by Phoronix while trying to do the update process using fwupd, a system daemon that allows session software to update the firmware. According to Richard Hughes and the firmware update notes, non-Intel machines cannot update GPU devices because they lack HECI-over-MEI support.

And it's not going to be updatable without the CSME functionality. The Arc card firmware is updated using HECI-over-MEI which means it's only available on Intel machines only. See https://t.co/QbGB8mc3l0

— Richard Hughes (@hughsient) November 4, 2022

To make more sense of this requirement, it's easier if you know what the Intel Management Engine (MEI) is. Simply put, it's an always-on micro-computer inside the motherboard running a UNIX-like OS with access to memory, networking and displays. The lack of documentation about the engine makes it almost impossible to learn what it does, but we know that it can update graphics card firmware, including those of Arc graphics cards.

So, in other words, if your CPU doesn't support MEI (non-x86 or pre-2008 Intel CPUs), you may have a hard time updating an Intel Arc graphics card. Meanwhile, Intel confirmed to Phoronix that updating the firmware on AMD-based systems will be possible. However, it's unclear if this is already supported or planned for a future release.

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KitGuru says: GPU firmware updates are usually not that important, but there were some cases where updating it actually introduced something nice, namely ReBAR on Nvidia GPUs. Fortunately, this type of update isn't that common, so those using Intel Arc GPUs on non-Intel/AMD systems shouldn't be affected much by this requirement.

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