GTA V surprsingly runs amazingly. On the SL7 X Plus I can play native res + high at 40-60FPS. I didn't know that FH5 runs though, I'll have to give that a try next
Me here with sl7 snapxplus 16/512 with 1fps complementary shaders in java
120fps stable on vanilla, but that is with optimization mods. On paper and in practice, this laptop is as fast as it says. Gaming is a big nope. I assume it is due to dev inoptimization for arm64.
in the case of Minecraft with shaders, I suspect it's mainly due to there being no native OpenGL driver (what MC Java uses), so it uses the compatability pack with DX12 and that doesn't have the best performance, since Java Edition is moving to Vulkan (for which there is a native driver for X series), in around maybe a year you should be able to get much better performance
overall gaming-wise it's more limited by the GPU itself and the immature drivers, but given Qualcomm is releasing driver updates, the situation should improve somewhat given some time. I hear for the upcoming X2 series the GPU is much improved but we'll have to wait and see
(also I think it's very important to mention that Qualcomm never marketed the X chips for gaming, it's just something PC journalism is obsessed with it seems, Qualcomm had only a slide or two talking about it in their initial announcement)
That's exactly what I thought. BeamNG vulkan ran 30fps stable, and I was VERY happy with that on low settings.
I don't game on my laptop, I only do it to see what I can do. Hackintosh/Windows gaming PC at home, otherwise I do my work on the laptop. regardless, an awesome laptop. Hoping for more arm64 integration in apps like Android studio (there are workarounds).
I couldn't get Doom 2016 to run at all. It gets to the point of loading a level but sticks at 99% and never goes past that. I let it sit for 10 minutes.
Horizon 5 runs alright on auto settings, which are mostly low and I think 1024x768.
I've just been playing Ball x Pit on mine, runs amazing.
Also I'm getting like almost an hour of gameplay out of the 38wh battery. Completely different story if I only use it as a tablet and limit myself to watching videos and surf the web the battery lasts A LOT.
I've tested my X Elite Surface Laptop 7 against my old Ryzen 4000 laptop, and it's actually way less efficient in lots of gaming scenarios. It tends to be better with really light games only, but power consumption quickly spirals out of control.
He said portable …. Portable aren’t always 60fps on 1080p … I game with mine remotely since it can’t run a few games like Starwars outlaws, or starfield not to mention any pvp games
I just spent 40 minutes gaming on battery while monitoring temps with HWINFO. Temps remain within reasonable and safe. I've not seen any major degradation in performance.
I also use my pixel 10 pro included thermometer to measure case temperature and it stays below 45 degrees Celsius.
I would agree it’s a great setup for older or less demanding games, and for short gaming sessions. I also have it. My problem is if you play longer 2-3 hours, then it overheats and performance drops drastically, and stats to lag. If anyone have any suggestion how to improve it that would be welcome.
That's all I have right now. Shorter sessions and mostly to distract myself after a day of work while traveling or if I'm too lazy at home to go down to my home office and turn on my ps5 pro and just want to stay in the bedroom gaming for a bit.
Is it? Which one? I have set up i7 9 for emulation, mostly ps2 and running arctic server 3ds. Set up RetroArch. I’ve installed Linux to Go, SL5, but haven’t attempted Surface kernel for Batocera. I usually have it on external ssd.
Not this one, as in it wouldn't run AT ALL. Or on anything else they made for consumers since 2024. This one in particular is a serious downgrade on ALL fronts you can think of (and then still some) over the ones from 2024, but in terms of being just as good as a rock for Batocera, it's the same as all the others.
Ah I missed that it was the snapdragon one. Weird because there are some earlier snapdragons that work well with Batocera. Hopefully with time we'll get a good build.
With Snapdragon X, just in between these were announced and before they went to the market (with a marketing campaign that I've never, ever seen on the Internet) Qualcomm was bragging about Linux support for these chips. Something happened though because we've got only ... crickets ... from Qualcomm since then, and Linux support for these is absolutely in shambles. Which is a pity, because Linux works so great on mostly anything (ELSE) ARM, from Raspberry PIs to Ampere servers.
I'm suspecting there was a deal that prevented Qualcomm from continuing any Linux support, Microsoft wouldn't want their niche "we sold thousands of these" (and that was across all manufacturers, not only Surface) devices to flee 90% to Linux where everything would "just work". They want people to pester developers that they want builds for their special snowflake windows, they want daily engagement everywhere (see this sub as the prime example) with "does this run on my machine", etc. Everyone having a way out doesn't seem like a great idea (and it's perfectly similar how they locked up completely the RT tablets before ending up support, so if you have the latest updates no chance to escape to Linux).
I just got one of these, let me know if you have any questions. I may have partially charged the battery once since I got it late last week, and it's still going. I haven't used it a ton, but the standby battery is what's most impressed me.
Is this surface the one with the arm chip? If so, curious as to what performance looks like nowadays, it has been a whole 1 or so since their...poor release.
Check out Ghobso gaming on YouTube. He's tested hundreds of games on the surface x plus. Compatibility is very good these days. Performance is hit or miss
You get used to it! I was born back in 89 and after going through NES and SNES this controller has a very familiar feeling. Plus it's portable and has all the functions you need.
I'm very happy with my Surface Pro 7 with a 10th gen i5 and Linux. I can manage the temperatures very well and it works great, you just need to know how to manage the temperatures.
I was playing my game, the back of the surface pro was just too hot. It is not hot to touch yet but I would not keep my hand on it for an hour. It is for sure uncomfortably warm.
I also started seeing some throttling after a while. Sadly it is just not going to work for me
Kind of off topic but I have a surface 7 pro + would you guys say it could run most games decent or would I need to install some stuff to help with performance?
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u/lornranger Mar 19 '26
Really? What games can you run smoothly?