No more Windows ARM compatibility?

[sinsro]

Microsoft used this game as a showcase for how well their Prism emulation technology is working on Windows ARM machines, and how dedicated they are to making games work on this new system.

Baldurs Gate 3 used to work well on my ARM laptop (Snapdragon Elite X, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7), but today I was picking up the game again, and after the title screen it crashes immediately to desktop. So either game updates or windows updates has killed the compatibility.

Sure, I know what you are thinking, "just dont buy an ARM machine for gaming". That's pretty obvious, and I bought it for other reasons (battery life, portability, tech curiosity, awesome screen and specs - mainly for work on the go). But, I am still a bit disappointed that the flagship for game compatibility on ARM now fails, so we are apparently going backwards not forward here.

[Worlord]

How long ago did you play it last? It might not even be related to the ARM processor.

[EricHVela]

Microsoft's support for ARM processors waxes and wanes. They'll promote it, make all kinds of efforts to have full x86(-x64) ISA things work on it, and when it continues to be a niche market, kinda forget about it.

Repeat a decade or so later.

ARM adoption is a RISC.

[Worlord]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Microsoft's support for ARM processors waxes and wanes. They'll promote it, make all kinds of efforts to have full x86(-x64) ISA things work on it, and when it continues to be a niche market, kinda forget about it.

Repeat a decade or so later.

ARM adoption is a RISC.

Nice.

[sinsro]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Microsoft's support for ARM processors waxes and wanes. They'll promote it, make all kinds of efforts to have full x86(-x64) ISA things work on it, and when it continues to be a niche market, kinda forget about it.

Repeat a decade or so later.

ARM adoption is a RISC.

lol

[sinsro]

Originally posted by Worlord:

How long ago did you play it last? It might not even be related to the ARM processor.

a month or two? Yes, I suppose it could be my save file got unsupported in the meantime, idk, I could try a clean start perhaps, or read log files to see the details of the issue... The problem is i play games to get away from work and relax, debugging a game is just... work...

But I have seen the same happen to other games, they initially worked on ARM, then some updates later, no more. Maybe updated compiler settings added some unsupported modern statements. Will probably just get a non ARM machine instead...

[Worlord]

Originally posted by sinsro:

Originally posted by Worlord:

How long ago did you play it last? It might not even be related to the ARM processor.

a month or two? Yes, I suppose it could be my save file got unsupported in the meantime, idk, I could try a clean start perhaps, or read log files to see the details of the issue... The problem is i play games to get away from work and relax, debugging a game is just... work...

But I have seen the same happen to other games, they initially worked on ARM, then some updates later, no more. Maybe updated compiler settings added some unsupported modern statements. Will probably just get a non ARM machine instead...

I know exactly what you are saying. You just want a hassle-free experience because it's supposed to RELAX you.

[nogoer]

using it as a showcase model then not caring is the problem. I too have the machine for lots of other reasons but being able to relax and play one of my fave alltime games would be great. For hecks sake i loaded up cyberpunk 2077 for a lark and was immesly surprised to be jaunting around night city!! if V can exist on arm why cant bg3??

[Oakshadow]

i never could understand the trust people put in products put out by companies like Microsoft and Google. They abandon projects with the same frequency as someone suffering anal leakage changes underpants.

It sucks that you bought in to this particular batch of broken promises..... but just treat it like a life lesson. Like a scorpion asking the frog to help them across the river, they will stab their consumers in the back. It's just their nature.

[superlloyd]

Originally posted by sinsro:

Microsoft used this game as a showcase for how well their Prism emulation technology is working on Windows ARM machines, and how dedicated they are to making games work on this new system.

Baldurs Gate 3 used to work well on my ARM laptop (Snapdragon Elite X, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7), but today I was picking up the game again, and after the title screen it crashes immediately to desktop. So either game updates or windows updates has killed the compatibility.

Sure, I know what you are thinking, "just dont buy an ARM machine for gaming". That's pretty obvious, and I bought it for other reasons (battery life, portability, tech curiosity, awesome screen and specs - mainly for work on the go). But, I am still a bit disappointed that the flagship for game compatibility on ARM now fails, so we are apparently going backwards not forward here.

Speaking of which, I am stuck with a bad opinion of ARM from when I grew up. But my boss seems to think ARM is very good now.
As an ARM user, I am curious if you could give us additional feedback beyond the unfortunate fact it's not ideal for games...

[sinsro]

Originally posted by superlloyd:

Originally posted by sinsro:

Microsoft used this game as a showcase for how well their Prism emulation technology is working on Windows ARM machines, and how dedicated they are to making games work on this new system.

Baldurs Gate 3 used to work well on my ARM laptop (Snapdragon Elite X, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7), but today I was picking up the game again, and after the title screen it crashes immediately to desktop. So either game updates or windows updates has killed the compatibility.

Sure, I know what you are thinking, "just dont buy an ARM machine for gaming". That's pretty obvious, and I bought it for other reasons (battery life, portability, tech curiosity, awesome screen and specs - mainly for work on the go). But, I am still a bit disappointed that the flagship for game compatibility on ARM now fails, so we are apparently going backwards not forward here.

Speaking of which, I am stuck with a bad opinion of ARM from when I grew up. But my boss seems to think ARM is very good now.
As an ARM user, I am curious if you could give us additional feedback beyond the unfortunate fact it's not ideal for games...

I bought the ARM machine as I am tech-curious, and for a while I was quite happy with it. It does what it promises generally, great battery life strong performance. Most important applications has a native ARM version now, I was actually surprised how well ARM is supported by devs. The list of ARM optimised applications is impressive, and even non-ARM programs runs surprisingly well.

However, as a developer myself I have to use a lot of less known programs that operates in more obscure ways, and this is where the problems starts. For example, I intended to use Flax Engine for a game development project, and it just didnt work no matter how many workarounds I threw at it. Some .net ARM issue, and because it is a bit obscure, these kinds of bugs will not be prioritised by the developers.

Several other tools had similar problems, often related to issues when part of the code is ARM optimised while others are not, such as a DLL being native ARM while another it cooperates with is not. Prism should sort that out, and it does most of the time, but when it doesnt you might hit a hard impenetrable wall which in the end turned out to be a dealbreaker. Especially when it looks like Microsoft is not prioritising the ARM-platform, and even their own games such as Age of Mythology: Retold does not work. I realise it is not a gaming platform, but games is a good benchmark to use when it comes to emulation as if they perform well then it shows the emulation is solid in general.

Rollout of Prism improvements such as support for more modern instructions is slow. I had to go on the Windows Canary update channel to get the latest Prism updates that was necessary for some programs to work at all, but being on Canary made my whole system generally less stable.

In the end I gave up and bought a gaming laptop instead. I actually prefer the ARM one as it lighter, runs cooler and has much better battery life. But it just hurt my work performance too much. For a more casual user who mainly uses webbrowsers, it is a solid choice though.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by sinsro:

Originally posted by superlloyd:

Speaking of which, I am stuck with a bad opinion of ARM from when I grew up. But my boss seems to think ARM is very good now.
As an ARM user, I am curious if you could give us additional feedback beyond the unfortunate fact it's not ideal for games...

I bought the ARM machine as I am tech-curious, and for a while I was quite happy with it. It does what it promises generally, great battery life strong performance. Most important applications has a native ARM version now, I was actually surprised how well ARM is supported by devs. The list of ARM optimised applications is impressive, and even non-ARM programs runs surprisingly well.

However, as a developer myself I have to use a lot of less known programs that operates in more obscure ways, and this is where the problems starts. For example, I intended to use Flax Engine for a game development project, and it just didnt work no matter how many workarounds I threw at it. Some .net ARM issue, and because it is a bit obscure, these kinds of bugs will not be prioritised by the developers.

Several other tools had similar problems, often related to issues when part of the code is ARM optimised while others are not, such as a DLL being native ARM while another it cooperates with is not. Prism should sort that out, and it does most of the time, but when it doesnt you might hit a hard impenetrable wall which in the end turned out to be a dealbreaker. Especially when it looks like Microsoft is not prioritising the ARM-platform, and even their own games such as Age of Mythology: Retold does not work. I realise it is not a gaming platform, but games is a good benchmark to use when it comes to emulation as if they perform well then it shows the emulation is solid in general.

Rollout of Prism improvements such as support for more modern instructions is slow. I had to go on the Windows Canary update channel to get the latest Prism updates that was necessary for some programs to work at all, but being on Canary made my whole system generally less stable.

In the end I gave up and bought a gaming laptop instead. I actually prefer the ARM one as it lighter, runs cooler and has much better battery life. But it just hurt my work performance too much. For a more casual user who mainly uses webbrowsers, it is a solid choice though.

I just scanned that love letter for ARM and skipped it at some point - instead I just leave the information here to check that it can help to reduce the number of cores.

If I have more information I will add them somewhere.