Baldur's Gate 3 and Borderlands run at around 30 FPS on the new Snapdragon X Elite Surface Pro

Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled a new range of AI-powered Copilot+ PCs, which will arrive soon. These PCs are powered by Arm-based Snapdragon X chips running Windows 11 with a suite of new AI features and optimizations. In addition to Microsoft's latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, Copilot+ PCs are arriving from various partners, including ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and more.

They all run on Snapdragon X chips with a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, which provides 45 TOPS of AI performance to meet the Copilot+ PC requirement. This is all fine for running AI tools locally, but what about gaming performance? Well, Microsoft held a Windows on Arm gaming demonstration at the Build 2024 event to showcase the power of the Qualcomm Adreno GPU found in the Snapdragon X Elite chipset.

According to Windows Central, which was present during the presentation, Baldur's Gate 3 can run on a Surface Pro at around 30 FPS at 1080p. This is comparable performance to high-end PC gaming handhelds, which is encouraging for the future of Arm gaming on Windows devices.

Microsoft also showcased Borderlands 3 running with similar performance using the new Auto SR super-resolution tech - exclusive to Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X Elite hardware. It's worth mentioning that gaming on an Arm-based chip requires emulation as engines, APIs, and other rendering technologies are designed primarily for x86-based hardware and discrete GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD.

Microsoft claims 1,200 games can run at 1080p 30+ FPS on Arm devices, with game compatibility and optimizations maintained and curated alongside the Arm community. It's also a hint toward a potential Arm-based future for the Xbox or what could end up being an Xbox gaming handheld, which sounds promising, especially when you factor in the superior power efficiency and "all-day battery" reliability of the Snapdragon X Elite platform.