Snapdragon X Copilot+ PC: Gaming on the Go

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Since then, we’ve learned more. That Microsoft and Qualcomm have dramatically improved the Prism x64 app emulator and added Auto SR (“super resolution”) upscaling capabilities in Windows 11 for Arm. And that Qualcomm is collaborating with game studios to help them best take advantage of the powerful Adreno GPU built into its processors. The result, thus far, is a list of over 100 games that run at 1080p and 30 FPS, most of which are emulated x64 titles. (One game, World of Warcraft, allegedly runs natively and achieves 1080p/30FPS).

Lenovo is mum on game playing, but I received a reviewer’s guide from Qualcomm ahead of time that recommends using low or medium quality settings for most PC games, the theory being that doing so will help with perceived performance while Auto SR will make them look like they’re running at a higher resolution and/or with better visual quality. And I’ve noted the Windows on Arm Ready Software website, which tracks which PC games work with Snapdragon X-based Windows 11 on Arm PCs.

With all that in mind, I started in the most obvious way imaginable by opening the Xbox app on the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14 I’m reviewing. After all, I pay for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which provides me with access to a big game catalog plus game streaming via Xbox Cloud Gaming. I also own a reasonably-sized library of games I paid for.

So color me surprised when the app–after installing a gaming services prerequisite–came up looking like this.

To be clear, none of my games library or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library is available. I can only access Xbox Cloud Gaming titles on this PC. For some reason. Here’s what the Xbox app looks like on a “normal” non-Arm-based PC for comparison.

This was the first I had heard of this limitation. I intended to install and continue playing Doom Eternal and/or Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, two titles I’ve been playing recently on PC. But that wasn’t going to happen.

Curious, I opened the Microsoft Store and browsed through the games section. The games I can access via Xbox Game Pass appear in the Store on the Yoga, but the “Install” button is grayed out and there’s a “Your PC doesn’t meet some requirements for this product” message at the top of each landing page.

So much for that.

My next stop was Steam: I have an account there, and a library of games, but given my Xbox defeat I figured it was better to try one of the games Qualcomm recommends. They are: GTA5, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Borderlands 3, F1 2022, God of War, FIFA 2022, Balder’s Gate 3, The Witcher 3, Rocket League, Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft (native), Redout 2, Control, DOTA 2, Civilization VI, Starcraft 2, and Total War: Warhammer III.

I was looking for something familiar, a first-person shooter with single player would be ideal. But I settled on Control, a third-person single player shooter, which I purchased on Steam, on sale for .99. While that was downloading, I browsed the Steam store a bit, hoping to grab Doom Eternal cheaply. But was .99, yikes. So I grabbed Doom (2016), which was .99, instead.

I had cross-referenced the Windows on Arm Ready Software website while doing this. This site rates compatibility on a scale that includes Perfect, Playable, Runs, and Unplayable. I had assumed Control would be rated Perfect since Qualcomm promotes it. But that game, like Doom (2016) is only rated Playable. Doom Eternal is rated Runs, not that it matters.

(As it turns out, Control Ultimate Edition, which is what I purchased from Steam, is rated Perfect. There you go.)

I left the games downloading while we went to dinner last night. When we got home, I fired up Doom, hoping for the best. In this context, “the best” is “it just works.” But that is not what I experienced. It did work, eventually, though I had to frig around with it and restart the game a few times before it would run successfully. At first, it just came up with an empty black screen. And then a weird full-screen game that was inlaid on just a portion of the Windows desktop and not actually full-screen. And then it just worked. For some reason.

I played Doom for perhaps 20 minutes after I got it working. And it played fine, with some random visual garbage here and there that I’m sure is tied to Auto SR and/or emulation. It never got in the way. Having experienced all kinds of PC gaming performance and visual issues, from playable Xbox Cloud Gaming titles and really low frame rates on locally installed games, this was better. Not seamless Xbox console or gaming PC quality. But playable. Acceptable, with frame rates hovering around 30 FPS and never dipping below 25.

It was time to try Control.

So much for “perfect”: I had the same experience I had had with Doom, with the allegedly full-screen game taking up just a small portion of the display.

Convinced I was missing something, I rebooted, shut down any superfluous apps running in the background, and launched Control again. This time it worked flawlessly: It ran full-screen with a native resolution of 1280 x 768, but a banner notification noted that Auto SR was working its magic. And it ran consistently well at about 40 FPS with nice graphical quality. Perfect acceptable.

That made me want to try Doom again. Maybe something had changed.

It had: Doom started up instantly in full-screen mode as well this time, and it looked great, with frame rates consistently in the low 40s, about 10 FPS better than before. It was running at 1366 x 768, but looked to be much higher resolution and quality. I recorded a bit of game footage and, oddly, it looks terrible, all splotchy and low-res. This makes me wonder if Auto SR is only a visual effect applied at runtime, as it doesn’t seem to have come through on the recording.

Here’s the best bit: All this was done on battery power. And there was no fan noise at all, during or after the gameplay.

OK, it was a lot of time and effort to get two games to work acceptably. But I feel like some Auto SR bit was flipped, and it appears that the games I did install are working normally now. I will continue playing each to see.

For now, I’ll describe this as a mixed experience. I love that you can play reasonably modern games at all on a PC like this, and while the success rate is low, it’s still better than the Mac. Anything that makes video games more broadly accessible is, to me, a good thing. I should mention, too, that many non-Xbox Store-based games–things like Asphalt Legends, Minecraft, and whatever casual games–are available for install on Snapdragon X-based PCs and probably work just fine.

But it is astonishing that Xbox Game Pass titles don’t work at all on these PCs. That is a major negative of what should be a cohesive platform, one I hope is addressed soon. Even a subset of the games I’m already paying for would be appreciated.

Until then, this is one step forward. But there are many more steps needed before we can call this a straight-up success.

AppWizard
Snapdragon X Copilot+ PC: Gaming on the Go