The side windows finally have legs

When I first used the Surface Pro X with power arm in 2019, I liked the hardware, but I didn’t like the software experience. Everything seemed to be delayed. Microsoft didn’t have native versions of Edge or its Office apps, and it was clear that the Surface Pro X was released too early. With little support from developers, Windows on Arm was unlikely to succeed.

Nearly five years later, the Windows on Arm experience has improved dramatically. Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus processors deliver a Windows 11 experience that feels like any ordinary laptop. Microsoft and Qualcomm have also pushed software developers to create more native ARM64 apps and that has made a big difference.

Apps like Photoshop, Dropbox, and Zoom are all native, as are entertainment apps like Spotify, Prime, and Hulu. Even Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Vivaldi, Edge and Brave are all on Arm now. This is a good start, but there are still many applications that will need to be emulated on these latest Copilot Plus computers, which is where Microsoft’s Prism emulator comes in.

Microsoft claims that Prism is as efficient as Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation layer and can emulate applications twice as fast as the previous generation of Windows on Arm devices. I’ve been testing the Surface Laptop for the past week and haven’t encountered the erratic behavior I saw in Microsoft’s previous emulator, which also affected battery life on the Surface Pro X. But I haven’t seen dramatic improvements in the emulator either. application performance that Microsoft promised.

Microsoft’s claims are difficult to test without comparing previous Arm-based devices. YouTuber Gary Explains did just that, comparing the x86 or x64 versions of Firefox, Cinebench R23, and HandBrake on a Surface Pro X without Prism and then with the latest Windows 11 24H2 update that includes Prism.

Gary Explains found that Prism delivered a 10 percent improvement in Speedometer 3 running in Firefox, an 8 percent jump in single-core Cinebench R23, and a 4.5 percent improvement in multicore Cinebench R23 compared to the previous emulator. HandBrake performance was also improved by 8 percent thanks to Prism.

In my testing, I’ve found that Prism handles compatibility well for non-native apps, but performance varies depending on the complexity of the app. ShareX, a screenshot tool, works well using the Prism emulator, but it’s a lightweight application. iA Writer and Notion are not native, but they work well even on these latest Snapdragon chips. Discord also performs much better than I’ve seen on Arm in the past, but there are still some occasional stutters and a slight lag when navigating between servers.

For heavier applications, Prism doesn’t come close to the experience you’ll find on an Intel- or AMD-powered laptop. Adobe’s Premiere Pro runtime emulation was virtually unusable for editing a 4K video on the Surface Laptop, which is probably why Adobe is now blocking the installation of the x64 version on Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors. An ARM64 version of Premiere Pro is planned for later this year.

Blender is another example of a low performance emulated application. Blender doesn’t detect Qualcomm’s Adreno GPU, so everything hits the CPU instead. Performance for rendering projects is terrible as a result, with one test I ran taking more than 15 minutes to complete, compared to just over two minutes on a 13-inch MacBook Air M3. Blender will soon have a native ARM64 version, but I tested the early alpha copy and it only slightly improved the results because it still doesn’t get the GPU right.

Intel has dominated the laptop GPU market with its integrated solutions for decades, so I suspect Qualcomm still needs to engage with software developers like Blender to ensure applications are optimized for its GPUs. Blender illustrates that Microsoft’s Prism emulator can’t solve everything.

Speaking of GPUs, games also don’t “just run” on the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus, despite Qualcomm’s assurances. I didn’t make a big deal out of it for the Surface Laptop review because it’s not a gaming laptop, but Windows gaming on the Arm is frustrating right now. Shadow of the Tomb Raider it kept crashing for me when I tried to play, and most other games I tried just refused to launch. Autumn boys throws an unsupported error, as it happens Hello Infinite. Fate 2 didn’t even start – no error, just pretty much nothing. Starfield did the same.

There aren’t many native Windows on Arm games, so Prism has its work cut out here. I managed to get Grand Theft Auto V working but with a lot of frame stuttering. Cyberpunk 2077 it also ran on a 7th gen Surface Laptop, but averaged around 26fps on low settings at 1080p resolution. of Witcher 3, Baldur’s Gate 3, control, Rocket LeagueAND Minecraft all worked out of the box, too.

The biggest issue here is that most anticheat utilities use kernel drivers that are not supported by emulation. BattlEye, a widely used anticheat utility, is one of the rare exceptions that supports Windows on Arm, but it appears that games are both Fate 2 using this anticheat software will need to be updated to work properly here. Thankfully, there’s a dedicated website that tracks which games are supported and running well. I don’t have much hope for winged gaming laptops though.

Another thing I’ve come across is apps just refusing to install. Google Drive is the biggest one here, as it throws an error about the Windows architecture of Copilot Plus computers not being supported. Google’s Drive app on Windows integrates into the shell just like Dropbox, which Microsoft didn’t originally support in Windows on Arm. However, there is a native version of Dropbox that integrates into File Explorer, so hopefully Google will be able to offer a similar experience soon.

There are also compatibility issues with external devices. I’ve seen reports of Brother printers and scanners not working well on Arm or simply that generic printer drivers don’t support all the features you expect. There’s no easy quick fix for accessories that require driver support, and that’s only likely to come based on how many people use these new Copilot Plus computers. I’m less concerned about driver issues here because I think most people will be able to connect the kind of accessories (webcams, printers, storage drives) you use to a laptop and get them working with the drivers built into Windows 11.

VPN apps are still a problem on Windows Arm, too. Bitdefender, NordVPN and Private Internet Access do not work. VPN developers use TAP and TUN virtual adapters and devices and need a driver signed by Microsoft to work properly. fortunately, Android Authority reports that VPN developers are working on ARM64 versions.

This is encouraging because the last time I used Windows on Arm regularly in 2019, I said, “Most of the applications I use on a daily basis have not been recompiled for ARM and probably never will be.” Now, it seems like Windows app compatibility on Arm is changing every day, which is a scenario I didn’t expect to see five years ago.

While we’re at this transition point, you may need to use beta versions or download special versions of Windows apps that are ARM64 native – just like the macOS transition. This means that versions of Windows Store apps are not always ARM64, and you may be able to find the upgraded version on the web before the app store version is updated. This was originally the case with Slack earlier this month before the store version was updated.

For everything else, Microsoft has some tools for power users that can improve the compatibility of Arm applications with existing unmodified x86 or x64 applications. There is a program compatibility troubleshooter that can help turn emulation settings on or off, and you can also change them in an executable’s properties. You can control things like hybrid execution mode to force the use of x86-only binaries, disable floating-point optimizations that can affect performance, and much more. You can also modify how an emulated application uses multiple CPU cores, which may improve performance or compatibility in certain applications.

Ultimately, it’s up to app developers to focus on ARM64 support for their apps. The sheer amount of native apps that are now available shows that things are moving in the right direction. These new Qualcomm chips also offer the brute-force power to emulate apps a little better, along with Microsoft’s Prism enhancements. Day to day, I think most people won’t even run into problems with the apps here because many of the main apps are already native or run well in emulation.

I’m sure many more ARM64 applications are still on the way. During my testing, benchmark tools and applications were updated to support ARM64, catching me by surprise. I’m willing to bet that we won’t be discussing the performance of Prism or emulated apps as much in a year or two, because native ARM64 apps will be as common as x64 apps are today, once the transition from x86 has begun in the early 2000s. After 12 years of trying to move Windows to Arm, it looks like Microsoft will finally succeed.