Microsoft’s Arm-based Copilot+ PCs are fast and highly capable with AI, but new doubts have emerged about these laptops’ gaming prowess
Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs are designed to run AI tasks blazing fast, while also offering useful features like all-day battery life. But what about gaming?
Okay, so these are AI laptops and not designed for gaming, true – but how about playing some casual PC games on your notebook? While it’s not unheard of for Microsoft to make questionable software design decisions, a new report gave me some food for thought, claiming that the first wave of Copilot+ PCs – powered by Arm-based Snapdragon X chips – may not even perform well for casual gaming in some cases.
Indeed, according to The Wall Street Journal report (flagged by MacRumors), those Snapdragon X-powered Copilot+ laptops can struggle to run a wide variety of PC games. In extensive testing, the WSJ found that of 1,300 PC games it ran, only half ran smoothly without any noticeable glitches or stutters.
While issues playing PC games on Arm-based Copilot+ laptops have been well-documented since the devices launched, the failure rate cited here is downright shocking.
Compatibility Challenges for Arm Devices
The problem, as you may know, is that Arm is a different architecture than the traditional x86 chips that PC games are written for. So in order to run those games on an Arm device, Microsoft has to use a software layer to translate x86 games (and apps) to make them work using a system called Prism.
Prism acts as an emulation layer, continuously converting instructions designed for Windows devices with x86 chips into instructions designed for devices with ARM chips. Apple has a similar tool for its Macs that you’ve probably heard of, called Rosetta (we’re now even on Rosetta 2), which allows Macs with M-series (ARM-based) chips to run x86 apps.
The problem is that emulation inevitably introduces performance overheads, and the whole process can lead to compatibility issues in some cases, with Prism apparently not faring so well on this side of the equation, as the WSJ report makes clear. As noted, Arm-based Copilot+ PCs only ran half of the games tested without annoying glitches or launch issues. Some popular games like Fortnite and League of Legends currently can’t run on Arm-based devices at all (anti-cheat systems are a particular problem, as we’ve heard in the past).
Clearly, this is an issue that Microsoft needs to continue to work on. I’m stating the obvious here about apps and games, but the ability to freely choose from the existing releases that are out there is a big part of what makes a computing device usable to any given person.
Copilot+ PC Expectations and the Future
Microsoft has now told users that if they want to play graphics-intensive games, a Copilot+ PC might not be for them. And to be fair to Microsoft, that’s not a primary goal of a Copilot+ laptop, and it never was – what’s slightly troubling is the severity of the problem as outlined in this new report from the WSJ.
I’m hoping that Microsoft addresses these issues with gaming on Arm silicon and continues to improve its Prism emulation technology, which to be fair is still in its early stages (Rosetta is on version 2 now, as noted). In the world of Copilot+ PCs, however, we’re going to see x86-based laptops that don’t have these compatibility issues – notebooks built on Intel’s Lunar Lake processors and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 silicon. Which is to say, this isn’t an issue with Copilot+ PCs per se, but with Arm chips – at least for now.