Qualcomm Says Windows Games Will Just Work on Snapdragon X Elite

As we inch closer to the release of ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite laptops, new details are emerging around the chipset’s performance, benchmark, and x86-x64 compatibility. At theGame Developers Conference 2024(GDC), Qualcomm’s engineerrevealedmany interesting details about gaming compatibility on the upcomingSnapdragon X Elitechipset for PCs. According to areportbyThe Verge, Qualcomm is confident that PC games would run on Snapdragon X Elite effortlessly.

There are three ways x86-x64 games would run on Snapdragon X Elite. First, developers can port the game to the native ARM64 architecture for the best performance and efficiency. Next, developers can create an emulation-compatible app,called ARM64EC, where Windows libraries and Qualcomm drivers run natively, but the rest of the app is emulated. Here, games would deliver near-native performance.Image Courtesy: Sean Hollister / The Verge

Third, and the most important one, if the developer doesn’t make any changes, the x86-x64 app should work just like that by usingWindows x64 emulation. Here, all of the x86 binaries aretranslated to ARM64which impacts the CPU performance (and battery life), however, this happens only the first time the code is translated. After that, the emulation layer uses the ARM64 cache directly.

Apart from that, to maintain gaming compatibility on Snapdragon X Elite, Qualcomm has prepared Adreno GPU drivers for Microsoft’s graphics API, DirectX. It has already developed GPU drivers forDirectX 11, 12, Vulkan, and OpenCL. It also supports older DirectX 9 API and OpenGL 4.6 through DX9on12 and GLon12 layers respectively.

Qualcomm says x64 emulation is improved significantly on Windows on ARM (WoA) and it offers good performance even when passed through the emulation layer. The company further says that it’stesting top Steam gameson Snapdragon X Elite and feels assured that gaming titles would work seamlessly on the WoA platform. That said, Qualcomm says that if the game comes with an anti-cheat system (that uses a kernel driver), the x64 emulation won’t work.

So far, we have only seen Apple pull this miracle with theRosetta 2 translation layerwhen it transitioned from Intel processors to its in-house M-series Apple Silicon. Now, how much better the x64 emulation is something only time will tell. Microsoft is expected to release the Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 for consumers with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. The company has already announced an in-person eventscheduled for Mayin Seattle.

We reported earlier that Samsung is also planning to release theGalaxy Book4 “Edge”with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. There are other OEMs too including Lenovo, HP, Acer, Asus, etc. who are planning to release laptops with the Qualcomm chipsetby June of this year. With the report of improved compatibility for gaming, are you excited about ARM-powered Windows laptops? Let us know in the comments.

Arjun Sha

Passionate about Windows, ChromeOS, Android, security and privacy issues. Have a penchant to solve everyday computing problems.

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