Unlike Apple's chips, Qualcomm's X Elite Arm CPU will run Windows games just fine using x64 emulation — native ARM64 code will give best performance

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Qualcomm is getting zesty in its ongoing battle with x86 CPU architecture, assures GDC attendees their graphic code or path "will work"

Official art and slogan of the Snapdragon X Elite, sourced from QC's official Product Brief.
Official art and slogan of the Snapdragon X Elite, sourced from QC's official Product Brief. (Image credit: Qualcomm)

Pushing the envelope for Arm gaming, Qualcomm is speaking out at the 2024 Game Developers Conference about how prepared its hardware is for x86 emulation and gaming— their session is titled "Windows on Snapdragon, a Platform Ready for your PC Games" [h/t The Verge]. Based on statements made during the full presentation and previously revealed benchmarking of the Snapdragon X Elite chips running x86 software, it seems Qualcomm is in a place to truly disrupt the Windows Gaming PC market.

Of the caveats listed in the full presentation, the most severe problem seems to be the lack of compatibility with anti-cheat software. This problem is also shared with certain PC games that have yet to come to Steam Deck's native SteamOS, despite being fully capable of running on its hardware in Windows. Other coding exceptions simply won't run on Arm without some degree of manual porting work, though fortunately most titles seem to work without any extra tweaking needed at all.

In any case, this news starts making many Arm devices look more viable— perhaps including the planned upcoming Playtron gaming handhelds and Linux OS, which will include Arm-to-x86 emulation support and (apparently) have Qualcomm backing. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite seems to be showing graphics performance on par with AMD's top-end mobile Radeon 780M iGPU and perhaps even better CPU performance. 

The Verge coverage includes a quote from QC Director of product management Micah Knapp, who says he's seen Arm run a game faster than x86 and run a game with better battery life than x86, but never both at once. If developers wish to improve performance without a full Arm64 port, they can also port their software to "Arm64EC", which allows it to reach "near-native" performance, according to Qualcomm.

Games that have reportedly been tested with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite laptops include Control, Baldur's Gate 3, and Redout II. These Windows games should all perform close to that of the Radeon 780M when played on a Snapdragon X Elite laptop, which is an impressive place to enter the market, considering how long it took Intel to catch up.

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Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JamesJones44
    I'm assuming the "emulation" uses the Windows WOW64 functions which is more like translation than full blown emulation.
    Reply
  • kealii123
    On my Qualcomm CX gen 3 tablet running windows, I can already get a few games running pretty well. Many games refuse to start, or crash, or give you 2-3 fps. But those that do run give me fps on par with my steamdeck set to 7 watts, with the same 800p resolution and same graphics settings. I assume my fanless tablet is also running at 7 watts for the CPU/GPU, so to have performance on par watt for watt, with whatever crappy translation layer that the last gen chips use is pretty impressive. This newer Nuvia-based stuff is supposed to be 50%+ more efficient, frame-per-watt than what I have now, and it sounds like it has better translation support. RIP Intel, AMD on life support (not really, but always nice to have more competition)
    Reply
  • Notton
    If this is true, and the prices aren't exorbitant, it could make for a killer handheld or sub 12" laptop/tablet.
    The entire market segment that Steamdeck, Ally, Claw, Legion, Ayaneo, GPD, etc. cater to could be upturned.

    However, this can all be over promised hype.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Notton said:
    If ... the prices aren't exorbitant,
    Heh, you're funny!

    Notton said:
    However, this can all be over promised hype.
    My bet is that they're not lying, but just cherry-picking some examples that work well. You can bet there will be plenty of examples that don't, but the key question is how the typical game will fare.
    Reply
  • kealii123
    Asahi Linux on life support?

    JK they will probably be the ones leading the charge of getting good linux experiences on the new Qualcomm stuff!
    Reply
  • ivan_vy
    bit_user said:
    My bet is that they're not lying, but just cherry-picking some examples that work well.
    half a truth is a lie in my book. Im not asking for niche apps, but there are plenty of productivity apps that need to be tested before calling it a true x86 replacement.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    kealii123 said:
    Asahi Linux on life support?

    JK they will probably be the ones leading the charge of getting good linux experiences on the new Qualcomm stuff!
    I doubt it. Qualcomm has been pretty busy upstreaming 1st party support. OEMs like Lenovo likely already have a partnership with a big distro like Redhat or Ubuntu. From what I hear, most features are working pretty well on the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3-powered Thinkpad X13S (not sure what distro), thanks to Lenovo's own contributions.

    I think Asahi is purely focused on Macs.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    ivan_vy said:
    half a truth is a lie in my book. Im not asking for niche apps, but there are plenty of productivity apps that need to be tested before calling it a true x86 replacement.
    I'm barely paying any attention to this hype. I only care how it performs in the hands of reviewers I trust.
    Reply
  • Notton
    Okay, I saw some youtube videos of the demo models Snapdragon had setup at their campus.

    The "lower powered version of the chip" was doing 30fps at 1080p for Baulder's Gate 3. Unknown level of graphics detail. Unknown if it's running natively or through emulation. Unknown how much power it is consuming.

    For a reference point, I looked around and it seems that the ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) can run BG3 at 1080p /30fps with medium-high graphics. It uses 18W while doing this.

    It's kind of hard to base any conclusion off of that, but it's good to see it can run a popular title with decent fps.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    JamesJones44 said:
    I'm assuming the "emulation" uses the Windows WOW64 functions which is more like translation than full blown emulation.

    Umm WOW64 is just library substitution.. this is a completely different thing.

    What they did was embed an x86 emulator into firmware while also including some assistance instructions to help accelerate some of the compound instructions of x86. Performance is definitely not going to be anywhere near a real x86 system of similar generation but it should be enough to run Windows and some older stuff.
    Reply