YouTube creator 'ArmGamingBench' spent 15 months testing 200 PC games on a Surface Pro 11 equipped with a Snapdragon X Plus processor. The results, published in a sprawling 90-minute video, chart Windows on Arm gaming's steady shift from fragile curiosity to a platform that handles more titles than most critics expect.

The project started in early 2024 when the creator picked up a base-model Surface Pro 11 with 16GB of RAM and the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus chip. No discrete GPU, no external cooling — just the integrated Adreno GPU and Microsoft’s Prism emulator. Over 450 days, every game was tested at 1080p with low-to-medium settings, the sweet spot for integrated graphics. Frame rates were captured with CapFrameX, and compatibility was rated on a four-tier scale: “perfect” (60+ fps, no glitches), “playable” (30-60 fps or minor visual issues), “unplayable” (below 30 fps or frequent crashes), and “fails to launch.”

The raw numbers: 67% of tested games were playable

Out of 200 games, 58 ran perfectly, 76 were playable, 41 fell into the unplayable camp, and 25 simply wouldn’t launch. That’s an effective 67% playability rate — a figure that compares favorably with early Steam Deck compatibility numbers, though Arm’s journey started from a much tougher place.

Breaking it down by category reveals where Arm shines and where it still stumbles. Lightweight indie and 2D games sailed through: Hollow Knight locked at 60 fps, Celeste never dipped below 60, and Hades 2’s early access build ran at a smooth 45-55 fps. Older AAA titles from the Xbox 360/PS3 era often hit 60 fps without breaking a sweat — BioShock Infinite averaged 62 fps on medium settings, and Portal 2 cruised above 100 fps.

Modern esports titles presented a mixed bag. CS2 booted but hovered between 25-35 fps on the lowest settings, making competitive play a headache. Valorant refused to run entirely due to Vanguard’s kernel-level anti-cheat, a common stumbling block for Arm machines. League of Legends, however, delivered a steady 80-90 fps after a few config tweaks, and Rocket League hit 50-60 fps on performance settings.

The biggest surprise came from emulated x86 titles that leaned heavily on Prism. Civilization VI, a CPU-hungry 4X strategy game, maintained 40-55 fps in the late game — remarkable given the emulation overhead. Microsoft’s own first-party titles, like Forza Horizon 5 and Gears 5, refused to launch due to anti-cheat and driver dependencies, a frustrating gap for Game Pass subscribers.

Emulation performance: Prism takes the spotlight

Microsoft’s Prism emulator, which translates x86 instructions to ARM64 in real time, has evolved significantly since its debut. Benchmarks inside the video show a 15-20% performance uplift in emulated games compared to the Surface Pro 9’s Windows 11 22H2 build, thanks to optimizations shipped in updates KB5034204 and KB5037853.

Games that rely on CPU throughput fared best. Sims 4, with all expansions loaded, ran at 35-45 fps even with 8-sim households. Stardew Valley, modded to the brim, held 60 fps. GPU-limited titles showed more strain: Cyberpunk 2077, tested out of morbid curiosity, delivered a cinematic 12-18 fps at 720p low — technically launched, but nobody would call it playable. However, the Adreno GPU’s driver maturity is catching up. Doom (2016) ran at 40-50 fps with Vulkan via DXVK translation, a technique the Arm gaming community has embraced. “Vulkan over D3D11 is the secret sauce for many titles,” ArmGamingBench noted in the video. “It bypasses some of the weaker DirectX drivers and hands work directly to the GPU.”

The test also highlighted how Arm-native titles bypass emulation penalties entirely. World of Warcraft’s ARM64 beta client pushed frame rates above 90 fps in dungeons. Baldur’s Gate 3’s recent Vulkan renderer update for Arm delivered a playable 30-40 fps on the Surface Pro 11, a staggering leap from its previously broken state. Larian Studios collaborated with Qualcomm on that fix, signaling deeper developer engagement.

Anti-cheat and kernel drivers remain the biggest barrier

Of the 25 games that failed to launch, 18 were bricked by anti-cheat software. Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and BattlEye have publicly announced Arm support, but game studios must ship updated binaries — and many haven’t. Fortnite, Destiny 2, and Rainbow Six Siege all fall into this category. Valorant’s Vanguard is even more problematic because it requires TPM 2.0 and secure boot calls that Arm Windows PCs don’t handle identically.

Denis Tokarev, a developer who’s reverse-engineered anti-cheat callbacks, commented under the video: “The Arm kernel handles memory allocation differently, and some drivers check for specific x86 instruction behavior. Until Microsoft harmonizes those HAL layers, certain games will remain blocked.” Microsoft’s Windows on Arm documentation acknowledges this, recommending developers use the Arm64EC ABI for gradual porting, but adoption lags.

Driver issues also plagued older games. Titles that use proprietary middleware — like certain PhysX versions — crashed on launch. Borderlands 2 and Arkham Knight refused to load until the tester manually swapped DLL files and forced a compatibility layer. “The average user isn’t going to do that,” the YouTuber conceded. “But the community is building automated tools that patch these games in one click.” Projects like dxup and FAYE aim to streamline the process, inspired by how Proton simplified Linux gaming.

Real-world thermal and battery observations

The Surface Pro 11’s fanless design forced thermal compromises during extended sessions. After 45 minutes of emulated Witcher 3 (28-35 fps, low settings), the chassis reached 48°C near the vents and frame rates dipped 10% as the SoC throttled. The tester recommended a small USB fan for marathon gaming — a hack familiar to many Arm laptop owners.

Battery life, however, was a bright spot. A one-hour session of Minecraft Bedrock Edition (native Arm) consumed only 9% of the 48Wh battery. Emulated titles drank more power: an hour of Skyrim Special Edition (playable at 35-45 fps) drained 22%. On a cross-country flight, the creator managed 3.5 hours of mixed gaming before hunting for an outlet, better than most x86 ultraportables.

Game streaming services filled many gaps. GeForce Now Ultimate turned the Surface Pro into a ray-tracing monster at 10W total system draw. Xbox Cloud Gaming and Boosteroid also worked flawlessly, side-stepping Arm compatibility entirely. For users with solid Wi-Fi, the creator suggested treating native Arm gaming as a “bonus, not the foundation.”

What the 200-game test means for Windows on Arm

The 15-month project underscores three truths. First, Arm gaming works far better than two years ago, but it’s not seamless. Second, anti-cheat and kernel drivers are the next frontier, not raw performance. Third, the community — through DXVK wrappers, DLL patches, and compatibility databases — is accelerating faster than Microsoft’s official tooling.

Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite chips, with their faster Adreno GPUs and improved LPDDR5x bandwidth, will raise the ceiling. But the floor — the games that won’t even start — won’t budge until anti-cheat vendors and game studios take Arm seriously. Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC branding has thrust Arm into the mainstream, but the gaming message remains muted. The video’s comment section echoed frustration: “I bought this thinking it would replace my Steam Deck — not yet, but it’s closer than I expected.”

ArmGamingBench plans to repeat the test in 2025 with the same library, tracking improvements. Early indicators look promising: a pre-release build of Assassin’s Creed Mirage (Arm-native, coming via a Ubisoft update) ran at 45 fps on the same hardware, and leaked Microsoft documents hint at an Arm DirectStorage optimizations in an upcoming Windows 11 feature update.

For now, the Surface Pro 11 stands as the best barometer of Arm gaming’s momentum. It’s a device that sold millions as a productivity tool, yet with the right library and expectations, it can moonlight as a capable portable console. The 200-game test proves the glass is half full — and the next pour might finally slake the thirst of Arm-curious gamers.