Microsoft's AI-Powered Copilot PCs Face Gaming Limitations Despite Impressive Performance

Microsoft's Arm-based Copilot+ PCs are fast and very capable with AI - but fresh doubt has been cast on the gaming prowess of these laptops

Microsoft's line-up of Copilot+ PCs is designed to run AI tasks in a superfast manner, along with providing welcome features like all-day battery life, but what about gaming? Okay, so these are AI laptops, and not designed for gaming, that's true - but what about dabbling in some PC games casually on your notebook? While it's not unheard of for Microsoft to make questionable software design decisions, a new report gave me pause for thought, asserting that the first wave of Copilot+ PCs - powered by Arm-based Snapdragon X chips - don't perform well even for more casual gaming in some cases. Indeed, according to the report from The Wall Street Journal (flagged up by MacRumors), those Snapdragon X-powered Copilot+ laptops might struggle to run a large number of PC games. In extensive testing, the WSJ found that of 1,300 PC games, only half of them ran smoothly without noticeable issues or glitches. While problems with running PC games on Arm-based Copilot+ laptops have been well-documented since the launch of these devices, the failure rate mentioned here is an eye-opening one. The problem, as you may be aware, is that Arm is a different architecture from traditional x86 chips that PC games are written for. So, to run those games on an Arm device, Microsoft needs to employ a software layer to translate x86 games (and apps) to get them working using a system called Prism. Prism works as an emulation layer, constantly converting instructions designed for Windows devices with x86 chips into instructions for devices with Arm chips. Apple has a similar tool for its Macs that you've probably heard of, called Rosetta (we're now on Rosetta 2, in fact), allowing Macs with M-series (Arm-based) chips to run x86 apps. The trouble is that emulation inevitably introduces performance overheads, and the whole process can lead to compatibility problems in some cases, with Prism apparently not faring that well on this side of the equation as the WSJ report makes clear. On Arm-based Copilot+ PCs, as mentioned only half of tested games ran without nasty glitches or problems launching. Some popular games like Fortnite and League of Legends can't be made to work on Arm-based devices at all right now (anti-cheat systems are a particular bugbear, as we've heard in the past). Clearly, this is an issue that Microsoft must continue to work on. I'm stating the obvious here about apps and games, but being able to choose freely among the existing releases out there is a huge part of what makes a computing device usable for any given person. For now, Microsoft has told users that if they want to play games with demanding graphics, a Copilot+ PC may not be for them. And to be fair to Microsoft, this is not one of the core aims of a Copilot+ laptop, and it was never intended to be - what is slightly worrying is the gravity of the problem as painted by this new report from the WSJ. I hope Microsoft will address these issues with gaming on Arm silicon and continue to improve its Prism emulation tech going forward, which to be fair, is still in its early days (Rosetta is now on version 2, as noted). In the world of Copilot+ PCs, though, we are going to start seeing laptops with x86 chips inside that won't have these compatibility issues - notebooks built on Intel's Lunar Lake processors, and AMD's Ryzen AI 300 silicon. This is to say this is not an issue with Copilot+ PCs as such, but with Arm chips - at least for now.

Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs can't play many popular games -- what's happening?

However, one area they all continue to struggle in is PC gaming, backed up by a new report from The Wall Street Journal. It all comes down to compatibility. While powerful, the Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips don't work with many top video games, like Fortnite, which are built on top of Intel's x86 architecture. The x86 chip architecture has been a standard for decades, with WSJ saying that approximately 15 percent of laptop owners are gamers. Microsoft designed software called Prism, which enables x86-based apps to run on Arm-based Windows computers. It has not worked well. The Wall Street Journal tested over 1300 Copilot+ PCs and found that most struggled when attempting to run x86-based PC games. In June, when the Copilot+ PCs launched, we saw examples of x86-based programs struggling as the Adobe suite didn't have a native version to run on the PCs. Premiere Pro was barely usable and has yet to see a native release, with Adobe claiming it would come out "later this year." Samsung released a list of all the apps that wouldn't be compatible with their new Galaxy Book 4 Edge laptop. It may not entirely be the game itself that is struggling to run, but the anti-cheat software that comes with many multiplayer games these days. The anti-cheat software is often not Arm-compatible and makes the game unplayable. Microsoft told the WSJ that "players who want a high-performance native gaming experience may choose an alternate PC optimized for gaming." Qualcomm said that the Copilot+ PCs are not a "gaming platform" but is working on improving the situation. Both companies claimed they were working on the situation but declined to provide a timeline for a fix. However, Microsoft may abandon that plan soon. For those who are interested in gaming on a Copilot+ PC, you won't have to wait much longer. AMD released the Ryzen 300 AI CPUs in July and will get an update to make it Copilot compatible in November. Intel's new Lunar Lake chipsets are launching in September, and Intel promises "unmatched AI computing power."

Microsoft's AI PCs fail with hundreds of games -- and there's no solution in sight - Softonic

Microsoft has launched its new series of PCs, Copilot+, which promise exceptionally fast performance for artificial intelligence tasks and all-day battery life, among other advantages. However, a recent report from The Wall Street Journal reveals that these devices have a major weakness: the ability to run popular games. The Copilot+ is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips based on ARM architecture, which integrate CPU, GPU, and a neural processing unit. This hardware choice puts Microsoft PCs in a similar situation to Macs with Apple silicon, which also uses ARM chips. The main consequence of this design is the incompatibility of applications initially designed for the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD processors. According to the same WSJ, approximately 15% of Windows users use it for gaming, a significant segment that seeks compatibility and performance in their devices. Microsoft users are not accustomed to encountering these incompatibilities. That is precisely why Microsoft developed Prism, a tool that allows x86 applications to run on ARM-based Windows machines. Apple followed the same strategy with its Rosetta 2, a real-time translation layer that, in many cases, made apps work better without any optimization on computers with Apple silicon than on their counterparts with x86 chips. For Microsoft, however, the results have not been the same. Only half of the tests conducted with 1,300 PC games worked without errors, crashes, or startup issues. The WSJ reports, for example, how anti-cheat software in games like Fortnite and League of Legends presents difficulties that cannot be transferred to ARM, preventing their execution. Other examples include Shadows of the Tomb Raider, which repeatedly crashed, and other popular titles such as Destiny 2, Starfield, Halo Infinite, and Fall Guys, which couldn't even start. The WSJ reports on Microsoft's response to the situation. They have acknowledged that games with certain graphic requirements may not work on PCs with Copilot+ and mentioned that, although their goal is to offer a "quality gaming experience" on the new devices, players seeking a high-performance experience should consider an alternative PC. The difference between Apple and Microsoft in implementation and adaptation to ARM technology is remarkable. While Apple has achieved a transition practically without problems with its Rosetta 2, Microsoft has encountered difficulties in making Prism work at a similar level. We have already talked about Apple's impressive milestone in this smooth transition of this magnitude. Although not in the short term, Microsoft is expected to achieve something similar.