Gaming under Windows on ARM: A medium-sized disaster
Strange behavior, stutters and black screens. If you want to play games on a Snapdragon X notebook, you have to try out a lot at the moment.
"Slay The Spire" is one of the games that run well on Windows on ARM with a Snapdragon X Plus. In this case, the graphics are kept simple, so the GPU is not overtaxed.
(Image: heise online / mma)
Microsoft is building functions into Windows on ARM that should also make the platform appealing to gamers. The AI upscaler Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR), for example, is currently exclusive to the ARM version of Windows 11 and is designed to enhance games and improve performance at Windows level.
The latter part in particular is important, as only Qualcomm's mobile processors have been released for Windows on ARM to date. At the moment, this means the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite and 10-core Snapdragon X Plus – both only have the integrated graphics unit available, not a separate, powerful graphics card. In addition, virtually no games have been patched for Windows on ARM to date. Instead, they run via an emulation layer, which costs performance. Every additional frame per second (fps) is welcome.
Big promises, little behind them
The Snapdragon X notebooks are primarily work devices. Gaming is a minor matter, even if some advertising campaigns suggest otherwise. Microsoft promises a lot in a blog post:
"Auto SR stands out in two exciting ways: it’s applied automatically and enhances existing games. Like other SR technologies, Auto SR uses AI to improve frame rates and image quality. However, Auto SR focuses on bringing the benefits of super resolution to your existing game library with no manual configurations needed."
"This makes it ideal for players who prefer a straightforward experience. Simply start your game, and Auto SR instantly enhances it, allowing you to effortlessly enjoy visuals that surpass native 1080p quality with the fast frame rates typically seen at lower resolutions. Auto SR boosts detail and performance on compatible hardware, transforming your gameplay and letting you experience select titles in a new light."
However, the reality quickly sobers up: on a support page, Microsoft admits that Auto SR only works in eleven (!) games so far: "BeamNG.drive", "Borderlands 3", "Control" (DirectX 11), "Dark Souls 3", "God of War", "Kingdom Come: Deliverance", "Resident Evil 2", "Resident Evil 3", "Sekiro Shadows Die Twice", "Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2" and "The Witcher 3". According to Microsoft, these titles are verified for a good gaming experience.
We tried out Auto-SR upscaling in the horror game "Resident Evil 2" and in the action role-playing game "The Witcher 3". In both, the result was mixed. Normal game content looked okay after an initial restart, but the surrounding area was inadequate.
Fonts such as –, including game menus –, look wobbly throughout, sometimes even illegible. In some games, the aspect ratios are crazy: "Resident Evil 2" can't do 21:9, "The Witcher 3" only allows a 4:3 ratio, whether on the display of the Surface Laptop 7 used or on an external monitor. The background windows of the system can therefore be seen on the left and right.
Nvidia's AI upscaler Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is far ahead of Microsoft's Auto SR. AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) also produces better results after numerous updates, although this upscaler does not use any AI algorithms. Instead, FSR applies a sharpness filter and offsets consecutive images against each other (temporal anti-aliasing).
(Image: heise online / mma)
The AI upscaler needs updates
Auto SR runs on the AI unit (Neural Processing Unit, NPU) of the Snapdragon X processors and thus relieves the GPU. However, it is an invisible black box. The render resolution is automatically reduced at Windows level and cannot be adjusted manually. There are also no settings for the aspect ratio.
In our case, the render resolution is always based on the notebook display, even if the game is running on an external monitor with a higher resolution. In the case of the Surface Laptop 7 used, the notebook display shows 2304 × 1536 pixels. Games are rendered with half the resolution per axis, i.e. a quarter of the total number of pixels. That is 1152 × 768 pixels or, in the case of "The Witcher 3", 1024 × 768.
Due to the reduced Windows resolution, the PC is difficult to use when you switch out of the game. Also annoying: Windows reduces the size of open background windows due to the resolution changes even after the game has been closed.
The "out of the box" idea doesn't work anyway, because you have to adjust the remaining graphics settings. Most games set the details far too high and stutter. The opposite is true of "The Witcher 3": The game further reduces the internal render resolution in addition to Auto SR, resulting in pixel mush. Unfortunately, The Witcher only runs moderately smoothly when the resolution is increased.
(Image: heise online / mma)
The positive sides
What has worked well so far are arcade-style games that are not too graphically demanding. The deck-building game "Slay The Spire" (apart from the poorly functioning window mode) is a positive example. Thanks to Windows emulation, all major launchers run, including Steam and the Epic Games Launcher.
On the unofficial website worksonwoa.com there is an overview of how well some games run under Windows on ARM. This is a good first port of call for those interested, but the overview is still limited.
Apart from that, you can mostly just try out whether a game runs. Unfortunately, Steam, Epic Games & Co. do not provide any information about compatibility. Microsoft does provide this in its own Windows Store, but the selection of games there is extremely limited. That's why you usually have to download and start a game first. With luck it will run smoothly, with bad luck you will only get a black screen.
(Image: heise online / vza)
The experience is inconsistent: "Fortnite" could be installed, but reported at startup that it was incompatible with ARM64. The Game of the Year Edition of "Tomb Raider" still showed the first cutscene, but then just stayed black. "Once Human" compiled the shaders for over half an hour after installation, but then complained about the unsupported graphics unit and could not be played.
Qualcomm is plagued by the same problem that Intel had when it introduced its Arc graphics cards: AMD and Nvidia have built countless fixes into their graphics drivers over decades, which have enabled old games in particular to run in the first place. Other companies lack this compatibility basis.
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