In context: Although many users will try to play games on Microsoft's new Snapdragon-powered Surface devices and the other Copilot+ PCs, the company warns that these remain productivity-first devices. While Microsoft and Qualcomm are constantly working to improve compatibility with legacy x86 software, large gaps remain, and the companies will likely never cover everything.
While Microsoft recently reassured PCWorld that x86 apps are constantly improving their performance on the new Arm-based Copilot+ PCs, the company admitted that progress on gaming might disappoint some. As these devices are obviously not gaming laptops, they currently don't support some important titles that run smoothly on low-end x86 machines, and it's unclear when compatibility will improve.
Running on Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X SoCs, the Copilot+ PCs aim to do for Windows what Apple Silicon did for Macs regarding performance and energy efficiency. Microsoft claims that Arm-native ports of many popular Windows programs are currently available, but users likely can't avoid relying on the Prism emulator to close some gaps.
Microsoft Devices corporate VP Pete Kyriacou confirmed that Slack and major internet browsers have Arm-native versions, and that Adobe is cooperating to ensure a smooth experience. Microsoft's main priority for Arm is either encouraging developers of major productivity apps to go native or optimizing Prism around them.
Although the emulator can handle over 1,000 games so far, it doesn't support anti-cheat, which cuts off access to notable online games. Recent tests confirm that Apex Legends, Fortnite, and League of Legends are currently incompatible with Arm Windows. However, Kyriacou said that Microsoft plans to make cloud gaming as smooth as possible on the Surface and other Snapdragon PCs, providing another avenue to users with strong internet connections.
Popular games that at least reach playable framerates through Prism include Baldur's Gate 3, Minecraft Bedrock Edition (but not Java Edition), Counter-Strike 2, Civilization V, Grand Theft Auto V, and more. Users can check the community database on worksonwoa.com for updated compatibility information.
Qualcomm plans to release new drivers for the Snapdragon X's Adreno GPU monthly, focusing on optimizations for the most popular titles on Steam. The company admitted that it will never reach all of the top games, but said that some have Arm-native versions. It remains unclear which titles natively support Arm or if interest in Arm executables will increase among developers, but Apple Silicon is slowly picking up triple-A game support, so something similar could happen on Windows.