Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptops went on sale June 18, and many tech enthusiasts are interested in what this new Arm chip will bring to Windows users. But aside from the usual business and productivity applications, a large number of people also use their Windows PCs for gaming. This is why Microsoft is busy working on several initiatives to improve Arm gaming.
Microsoft knows that gamers drive a huge chunk of the desktop and laptop market, and those with money might spend thousands of dollars on the best GPUs and the best gaming CPUs, making it a very lucrative market for the companies involved. Apple also knows this and is making efforts to woo gamers to macOS. So, if Qualcomm wants its Snapdragon X Elite chips to get a foothold in the entertainment side of the market, it needs to work with Microsoft to optimize both the processor and Windows 11 on Arm for gaming.
The most important piece of the puzzle right now for Qualcomm and Microsoft is the Prism emulator. The majority of gaming titles today run natively on x86 chips, and Copilot+ PCs need to run them smoothly if the Arm brigade wants a chance of being considered by gamers. Nevertheless, Microsoft says, “the performance improvements of Prism, along with automatic super resolution and the new Snapdragon X Series processors together emerge as a game-changer.” The company even showed off a video of Baldur’s Gate 3 running on a Snapdragon X-powered Copilot+ PC, and it showed relatively good performance, although we don’t know the specifications of the device used for this demo.
Still, gaming issues persist
All that said, the Snapdragon X platform is certainly not without its gaming issues and limitations. The Wall Street Journal has called out issues with "Fortnite" specifically. And Digital Trends points out that several reviewers are having issues with gaming and emulation. Some of this is to be expected, as these systems aren't aimed at gamers, and the platform is brand-new. But it will be interesting to see how much better things get on the gaming front with these systems in the coming months.
Anti-cheat provider collaboration
Importantly, Microsoft has also been working closely with anti-cheat providers like BattlEye, Denuvo Anti-Cheat, and Wellbia XIGNCODE3 to ensure that these apps work despite the emulation. Most advanced anti-cheat apps work at the kernel driver level, so Microsoft and Qualcomm needed to work in advance to ensure that these anti-cheat apps would be available and work on launch. The availability of these anti-cheat apps ensures gamers can enjoy multiplayer games on Windows 11 on Arm.
If you’re considering a Snapdragon X-powered Copilot+ PC right now but you’re also a gaming enthusiast, you’re going to love the Windows on Arm Ready Software page created by Linaro. This open-source database catalogs all the games you can run on Windows on Arm, with Microsoft and Qualcomm contributing almost 1,400 validated games. So, you should visit this page first before buying that PC to ensure that your favorite titles are supported.
According to Statista, the market revenue of the global video game industry currently sits at a massive $455 billion. So, ignoring the over two billion gamers globally would not be wise for Snapdragon and Windows on Arm. The power and efficiency of these new Windows laptops are great things on paper, but they’re pretty useless to gamers if they cannot rely on them to run their favorite titles.
