Microsoft says not to expect good gaming performance from its new ARM Surface laptops

Before the launch of the Copilot Plus PCs, Qualcomm touted competitive gaming performance for its Snapdragon X series ARM processors. While Microsoft didn't make any big claims, the Microsoft-backed website WorksOnWoA.com did make it seem that many games will run great on the newly released ARM laptops.

But now that in-depth reviews of the very first Snapdragon X Elite laptops are out, we know how weak the new ARM systems are in terms of gaming. To Qualcomm's defense, the productivity performance is great, and the fact that this performance remains stable even when on battery is a big plus point.

Microsoft shares the same story, admitting that these new ARM Windows machines aren't gaming systems. Instead, they are designed to be productivity-first devices, and they will aim to excel in this rather than in gaming. Basically, they are what Apple Silicon made the new Macs in terms of energy efficiency and productivity performance.

Of course, there is some progress in gaming. The Prism emulator can now run more than 1,000 games. However, the biggest drawback is that it doesn't support anti-cheat, which makes almost all the popular online games a no-go. For example, you can't run League of Legends, Fortnite, and Apex Legends on the new laptops with Snapdragon X series processors.

On the bright side, Pete Kyriacou, the corporate vice president at Microsoft Devices, says that the company plans to make cloud gaming as good as it can be on the new Surface and Snapdragon X series laptops. Moreover, Qualcomm promises to release new Adreno GPU drivers every month. These will focus on improving the gaming performance of some of the most popular Steam titles.

But, yes, Qualcomm admitted that the new laptops with Snapdragon X series processors won't be able to play all the AAA titles out there. The company did hint at ARM-native versions for some. There's no word on which titles will get native support, though. However, given that Apple Silicon is slowly picking up its pace, something similar could happen to Windows on ARM if interest in ARM executables increases among developers.

Get the new Microsoft Surface Pro with Snapdragon X Elite from Amazon