Surface Pro 11 Gaming Review: A Legitimate Gaming Laptop*

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Back during my initial gaming review of the Surface Pro 9, I could see plenty of promise just waiting for #WindowsOnARM to work through its varying levels of jankiness. Now, with the #SurfacePro11, most of that jankiness is in the past. Better yet, it’s running games better than either of my handheld PCs while getting much better battery life. The catch? Well...there’re a few things...
Previous Windows on ARM videos
- Surface Pro 9 Gaming Review: • Gaming on an ARM-based...
- Surface Pro 9 Gaming Review (1.5 years later): • Surface Pro 9, 1+ year...
Gameplay recording and testing notes
All gameplay not showing the Surface Pro on the screen was recorded with an Elgato HD60 and upscaled in post for the video. Heavier games were generally recorded at 720p/Low preset with VSYNC enabled and motion blur disabled for smoother recording. For games like Control, Tomb Raider, and Another Crab’s Treasure, the recording in the video aimed to be a worst-case scenario for graphic intensity. In less cluttered environments, each game tended to have a 20% - 30% bump in FPS.
Outside battery drain tests, game tests were typically associated with half an hour or more of gameplay with the average observed frame rates specified in the video. All gameplay performance described was while on battery.
Battery life claim settings
All tests were performed with the Surface Pro 11 at ~50% screen brightness alongside 120 Hz + VRR + HDR enabled and both Auto SR and Auto HDR disabled. Any apps running in the background weren’t noted as having a significant power draw.
- Another Crab’s Treasure: Best performance power profile, 1280x720 resolution in-game, Medium textures and Medium graphics, 60 FPS limit, and Vsync (plus all other toggles) enabled.
- Pepper Grinder: Recommended power profile, Native resolution set in-game
Other game notes
To prevent the video from being bogged down by a ton of specific details about specific games, I avoided getting into the weeds about a ton of games tested for the video. See below for a list (as of the video going live) of games that either crashed or had significant glitches to performance.
It's also worth noting that Game Pass games still need to be installed through the Microsoft Store at the moment, since the Xbox app doesn't have PC Game Pass support for ARM-based systems.
Refused to load:
- Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
- Doom Eternal
- Elden Ring (Not compatible with ARM systems)
- Fallout 3 (Game of the Year Edition)
- Forza Horizon 4 (Game Pass)
- Ghostwire Tokyo
- Hi-Fi Rush
- Horizon Zero Dawn
Significant graphical glitches
- Cassette Beasts (Sprites flash on and off)
- Celeste (Only OpenGL version plays)
- Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (Very playable, but menus are slowed to a crawl)
- Sunset Overdrive (Gameplay feels sluggish)
- TemTem (Flickering Shadows)
Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:18 Hardware
02:56 Lighter Games
06:14 Heavier Games
12:08 Emulation
16:13 Auto HDR and Auto SR
20:18 Summary

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Опубликовано:

12 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 46

@avriljil 16 дней назад

It's a matter of time and hard work of developers to solve all compatibility issues for Windows on Arm, hope also vulkan api will help

@christianr.5868 17 дней назад

Emulation on this thing is gonna be awesome. Can’t wait til it gets a native switch emulator

@shirokuro73 16 дней назад

Thanks for a clear and detailed video! I just got the Surface Laptop 7 and am very impressed so far. It's basically the same internals as the SP11 so I think my experience with it will be comparable. I'm seriously considering swapping it for the SP11 for the form factor, but we'll see! the SL7 is a gorgeous machine in its own right. So far the only gaming I have tried is World of Warcraft, which is natively compiled for arm64 and it runs very very well on medium to low settings. I'm looking forward to trying out more games and some emulation. I'm leaving on a work trip shortly, and sadly here's where the SL7 (and I assume all Windows on Arm devices) falls down in my case. It's not compatible with our corporate VPN - it installs but then it just doesn't work, it's missing a driver. Similarly, there's another work tool which is quite proprietary, which also doesn't work. I don't have to use it often, but I need it to be there when I need it. So, sadly, I may have to leave the SL7 at home for the trip. It's a shame, because almost everything else I've tried works great, I would love to make this my main machine.

@GameXData 16 дней назад

Glad to see someone else having a good time with gaming! Between WoL and Minecraft, it feels like there's a surprisingly large group of folks who could be satisfied with native ARM gaming already. (Hopefully, more games will follow suit though.) But, yeah, work tools definitely feel like the Achilles heel of Windows on ARM devices. Considering the long update cycles for enterprise aps (and many places still running Windows 10), it's anyone's guess how Microsoft plans to bridge that gap.

@shirokuro73 16 дней назад

@@GameXData I'm pretty bummed actually, I'd love to take it on my trip, but between my work PC, steamdeck, and a bunch of other stuff, my backpack is already going to weigh a ton! If it handled those few work tools, I'd happily take it in place of the work PC. If I was traveling for pleasure though, I'd have no qualms about having it as my only PC.

@PabloMartinez-di2tt 17 дней назад

MS has a lot of work to be done to get gaming emulation on ARM to work. We know from the leak lawsuit docs that MS was working on an ARM based Xbox system for next gen.

@GameXData 17 дней назад

Honestly, even if they got half of their Game Pass library working with support in the Xbox app it'd go a long way toward proving out an ARM-based gaming machine.

@cowchunks5120 4 дня назад

Super useful video. I really like the idea of a tablet sized windows computer with gaming capability. This seems pretty good, but the price is a little steep considering you can get a much more powerful laptop for the same price. But that portability is what keeps me interested

@flyingaviator8158 8 дней назад

Amazing Video; clear communication calm voice great time stamps. Keep it up mate!

@destructodisk9074 16 дней назад

We need a Surface Go update fast. Telescoping controller and you got yourself a solid 4 hour Steam Deck.

@vincentgagnon8569 17 дней назад

Thanks, love the review. I hope that in a nearby future, the Arm chip will be used by gaming oled tablets with iGPU and a fast port to dock it to an external GPU, That with a sandwich controller would be my dream jack of all trade PC.

@TungNguyen-ij9wn 17 дней назад

can you tell me if Thinkorswim works on ARM/this device?

@GameXData 17 дней назад

It's not a piece of software I'm very familiar with (nor do I have an account to download it myself). If you're focused on the desktop software, you might want to check if they have an ARM64 app available for Windows. If not, I found a couple posts with a quick search that showed folks having mixed experiences with ARM device performance in the past (on both Windows and MacOS).

@aliboghaith1989 17 дней назад

what about city skylines 2? is it work good?

@GameXData 17 дней назад

I don't have Skylines 2 available in my library, but WorksOnWOA lists Skylines 1 as "Playable" (i.e., runs mostly fine with minor glitches) and I'm personally seeing a smooth 40+ fps on a new map at half render resolution. I know Skylines 2 is a bit heavier on performance, but even I'm betting it could be playable (unless there's some weird compatibility quirk). With that in-mind, definitely don't expect to be loading any of the mega cities that'd tank performance on more performant gaming laptops.

@MarkMann1 17 дней назад

What about Proton and Linux, how does that work on ARM?

@GameXData 17 дней назад

Windows Subsystems for Linux are natively supported, and I've heard rumors of folks getting ARM Linux distros working. Proton support I'd be less certain about. I'm not entirely sure it'd be better than what's currently available via Windows 11, but I'd be interested to see someone try it.

@ohaia23 16 дней назад

You use box86/box64 on Linux arm

@MzuMzu-nx1em 16 дней назад

Probably incompatibility means that the emulation increases too much the ram required, a common problem with emulation Probably need some dedicated chipset to resolve the problem

@GameXData 16 дней назад

That'd be an interesting if true. I haven't seen anything yet to suggest that's the case, but that would mean compatibility potentially being improved with the 32 GB models. Although, I'm not certain new hardware would be entirely necessary. Performance and number of playable games have increased quite a bit over the past year on Windows on ARM just through (seemingly) regular software updates. (Vulkan and OpenGL compatibility used to be a much larger problem.) Even if process efficiency were the determining factor, it's possible it'll get smoothed out before my one-year follow-up to this video.

@MzuMzu-nx1em 16 дней назад

@GameXData an adeguate chipset for emulation, would easily fool the software into working, and remember the emulation is via software, every passage through software that emulates, encrease the ram required, that could be huge if the data to emulate are huge like the games.

@MzuMzu-nx1em 16 дней назад

@GameXData the emulation of the architecture is made via software . This requires ram , and probably Windows isn't able to manage this weird add-on. Even the add-on can't use properly the virtual ram on ssd . part of the problem requires updates via software , part of the problem requires a chipset with dedicated ability to clarify to rhw whole system the price in ram and calculations of the emulation. Probably windows O.S. online support is going nuts right now. GPU graphics processor unit ???? EEU Emulation Enancher unit ????

@NrgTrickzPhil 16 дней назад

have you tried playing league of legends on it? :)

@GameXData 16 дней назад

Just tried downloading it to test. Everything initially seemed to install fine, but Riot's client stuck displaying a message that my computer needs a restart to play. (I've restarted my computer five times now.) My best guess is that something about Vanguard anti-cheat isn't meshing well with Windows on ARM. If LoL's your go-to game, you may want to wait until there's word of official support.

@kurbasw8 17 дней назад

For games that aren't compatible run them with fex

@PunisherOfDeath101 2 дня назад

I would buy if they went a little bigger and fit an amd igpu. Too much compromising issues with the device.

@SalivatingSteve 11 дней назад

My $280 Lenovo w/ Core i3-1215u can launch and run Hi-Fi Rush on lowest settings. The biggest issue with Windows on ARM devices for me is that they’re way too expensive, with all of them costing $1000 minimum. They need more budget oriented devices for $500, not high end devices with 120Hz 1440p HDR displays. Supposedly the Qualcomm chips are cheaper than Intel for OEMs, so it doesn’t make sense why these ARM machines are so insanely expensive.

@christianr.5868 9 дней назад

Just because they’re new. They’ll make cheaper options in time

@inamulbhuyan 17 дней назад

Snapdragon X Elite ❤❤

@josher14 12 дней назад

I wish you would have explained more of the compatibility issues since most multi-player games are off the table like roblox, fortnite, apex legends, pub g, and destiny 2.. And only work if streamed by another pc or using GeForce now or the like.. So it's definitely not legitimate yet until probably enough driver support gets worked out or the next model sadly

@GameXData 11 дней назад

Quite honestly, I think lingering on compatibility at the moment isn't all that helpful for understanding the device's performance. "Certain games don't launch," "We're waiting for Microsoft to do something about," and "Do your research ahead of time if you want this for gaming" are about as much needs to be said for a device not explicitly meant for gaming. For online games in particular though (including Elden Ring), support by anti-cheat is the only thing holding those games back. The hardware is more than performant enough to support the game you've listed. There just either needs to be some software patch or driver update to allow them to run. New hardware really isn't needed. I also think it's best to judge the legitimacy of a gaming device on how well it can play supported games rather than the list of games it can't support. To base legitimacy on support for something like Destiny 2, we'd also have to discredit the Steam Deck, since the game still isn't supported there.

@josher14 11 дней назад

@@GameXData I'm all about showing the good and bad so people can make an educated choice.. I played Witcher 3 on the surface pro 4 when it ran at like 7fps.. I just tested god of war on the pro 11 x plus and was dropping to 18 fps.. You make a lot of good points however I disagree that Microsoft is motivated to make all the games run better..they don't even allow you to install game pass games.. Qualcomm is supposedly coming out with beta drivers but there's nothing on their site which is also so poorly laid out.. This copilot pc launch has really been rushed and it shows.. I'm just about through with my testing and I'm going to return and wait to see if things mature and maybe might revisit when a 5g model comes around

@GameXData 11 дней назад

@josher14 Motivation is definitely fair to question. As with previous Windows on ARM machines, improved game compatibility is tied to sales volume and how far Microsoft is willing to push the platform. Meanwhile, Qualcomm still needs to prove to most folks that it's viable for laptop computing. It's anyone's guess whether either company will follow through, but it's still too early to write them off. As you mentioned, Qualcomm is working on driver updates that should bridge some gaps. I also saw gaming performance and stability increase quite a bit across the Surface Pro 9's lifespan, which gives me some confidence there'll be some long-term improvements to come. You're entirely valid being more cautious than I am; I think this is an issue where the next few months will prove out if Microsoft is actually invested in the platform. As an added note, the lack of Game Pass in the official app is also frustrating to me. (They really should have figured it out before launch.) However, you can actually download quite a few Game Pass games through the Microsoft Store. The main issue is that they've blocked certain downloads because the Store seemingly doesn't know how to interpret the chip architecture and VRAM to determine compatibility.

@josher14 11 дней назад

@@GameXData yeah I appreciate linaro doing the works on woa site but they haven't updated it ( I submitted my own reports and nothing) and some of the results that show playable no longer work.. which is hilarious.. some are reporting that valheim doesn't work but I've got it to work.. it's definitely feeling like we're beta testers.. i'm not writing the snapdragon off, i'm going to see how these new drivers do and then see.. but definitely going to return within the 60 days for now and wait and see if the driver/game support matures or not

@trumpalumpa9368 17 дней назад

I compared benchmarks and over 16 tested games the median is that surface pro eleven is only 60% as fast as a current steam deck. Or in simple words, only half as performant. This is not a good gaming device yet. Qualcom must step up gpu performance to compete with handhelds.

@GameXData 17 дней назад

Not sure which games you're testing, but, on every direct comparison my wife and I have done, we're seeing better general performance on the SP11 with better battery life. Typically, to get close to the SP11's performance on heavier games, we need to max the Steam Deck's TDP, which isn't great for portable gaming. As shown in the video, the SP11's perfectly fine for gaming already.

@christianr.5868 17 дней назад

The gpu in the snapdragon outperforms the one in the steam deck. The thing is driver support and emulation improvements, which will naturally improve throughout the year

@Bizmops 17 дней назад

emulation translation kill the performance like 50% from its actual performance. and i think mac aka rosetta is 2x better performance in translation than prism in windows arm

@christianr.5868 17 дней назад

@@Bizmops nope. They’re even

@trumpalumpa9368 16 дней назад

@@GameXData I use a gpd win 4 and regularly reach the full 25 watts. Also all other videos that tested gaming seem to confirm my own research. The framerate is consistently in the same range in games as "control", "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" and similar examples.

@GerryReid 17 дней назад

click bait inaccurate title, its gaming performance atm is not good

@GameXData 16 дней назад

I mean, it's not like this video isn't filled with gaming footage

@destructodisk9074 16 дней назад

The Snapdragon APUs graphics suck compared to Apple M series, but so does everyone else’s APUs. The highest end full fat desktop APU from AMD, the 8700g, with a giant cooler pulling dozens of watts, gets beaten by Apple’s entry level M4 series chip in a fanless tablet that pulls less than 20w for the entire device when maxed out. In a world where Intel and AMD APUs are the APUs most in use for traditional game though.. the Snapdragon offering is pretty competitive and the battery life is what makes it really shine. Sucks to buy a portable gaming device only to find out you can’t really game portably for even a one way flight without your device dying.

@nelsondsalves 16 дней назад

My surface laptop 4 with iris xe graphics runs games better than this

@petrm2234 14 дней назад

lie from first word

@patrikvonkohler8739 2 дня назад

Hey @gamexdata can you please try the game DayZ? It's the only game I want to play on PC but I don't want to get a gaming pc for it, and I need a new portable laptop so hoping it will work!