Qualcomm spills the tea: Windows games now compatible with latest Arm laptop chipset

Qualcomm’s New Arm-based Laptops and Snapdragon X Elite

Qualcomm is rumored to be developing new Arm-based laptops, along with consumer versions of the upcoming Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 that will run on the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. In the past, switching to Arm-based systems would have required app developers to port their software, but Qualcomm is assuring game developers that their titles will run smoothly on these new devices without any extra work.

Game Emulation for Improved Performance

At the Game Developers Conference, Qualcomm engineer Issam Khalil revealed that the new computers will use emulation to run many x86 and x64 games at near-full speed without needing code tweaks. While some games with kernel-level anti-cheat features may not work through emulation, Qualcomm has tested its technology with top Steam games and is confident it can handle most titles.

Options for Developers

Developers have the option to fully port their games to native ARM64 for optimal performance, or use Qualcomm’s support for hybrid ARM64EC apps, which provide near-native performance by running Windows libraries and Qualcomm’s drivers natively while emulating other parts of the software.

Comparing Emulation Success

While Apple has been successful in emulating x86 software on its Arm-based M-series chips with Rosetta 2, Qualcomm’s track record with x86/x64 emulation has been criticized in the past. Apple’s control over the entire ecosystem may give them an advantage in optimizing the emulation process compared to companies like Qualcomm, which provide fewer components of the system.