4 ms·

How's the compatibility? Are there any apps that don't work that are critical?

jasoneckert 1y ago
Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No." The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!
- tobias3 1y ago
  For me it is too slow to run Age of Empires 2: DE multiplayer. More than ten year old Laptops with Intel chips are faster there.
  - nulld3v 1y ago
    I suspect that's due to the GPU and not due to Prism, because they basically just took a mobile GPU and stuffed it into a laptop chip. Generally performance seems to be on par with whatever a typical flagship Android devices can do. Desktop games that have mobile ports generally seem to run well, emulation is pretty solid too (e.g. Dolphin). Warcraft III runs OK-ish.
    - zamadatix 1y ago
      The GPUs don't go toe-to-toe with current gen desktop GPUs but they should be significantly better than the GTX 650, a mid range desktop GPU from 2012, the game (2019) lists as recommended. It does sound like something odd is going on than just lack of hardware. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+Elite+-+X1E78100+-+Qualcomm+Adreno+GP&id=5096 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+... https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+650&id=2155 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+6...
      - TiredOfLife 1y ago
        That something odd is called GPU drivers. Even Intel struggled (they recently announced that they are dropping all gpu driver older than Alchemist development) to get games running on their iGpus
      - nulld3v 1y ago
        There are also some architectural differences between mobile & desktop GPUs which may impact games that are not optimized for the platform: https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-snapdragon-x-elites-adreno-igpu https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-snapdragon-x-elites-adreno-...
- GeekyBear 1y ago
  That's certainly not what the reviews say. Adobe apps that ran fine on Rosetta didn't work at all on Prism. https://www.pcmag.com/articles/how-well-does-windows-on-arms-prism-emulation-work-we-tested-with-31-apps# https://www.pcmag.com/articles/how-well-does-windows-on-arms...
- Derbasti 1y ago
  Same here. I've not had any issues with my Surface Pro 11.
christopher8827 1y ago
Most apps for dev work actually work; - RStudio - VS Code - WSL2 - Fusion 360 - Docker Only major exception is: - Android Studio's Emulator (although, the IDE does work)
- nulld3v 1y ago
  Yeah, I too was surprised to find the dev experience very good: all JetBrains IDEs work well, Visual Studio appears to work fine, and most language toolchains seem well supported.
  - MBCook 1y ago
    JetBrains stuff (love it!) is built on Java, so I’m not terribly surprised. I don’t know how much native code there is though. Plus they’ve been through the Apple Silicon change, so it’s not the first time they’ve been on non-x86 either.
electroly 1y ago
Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible [EDIT: see reply, I might be mistaken on this]. Creation of a recovery drive for a Snapdragon-based Surface (which you have to do from a working Snapdragon-based Surface) requires typing your serial code into a Microsoft website, then downloading a .zip of drivers that you manually overwrite onto the recovery media that Windows 11 creates for you. Day-to-day, it's all fine, but I may be returning to x64 next time around. I'm not sure that I'm receiving an offsetting benefit for these downsides. Battery life isn't something that matters for me.
- brokencode 1y ago
  That’s brutal.. I wonder why the Apple Silicon transition seemed so much smoother in comparison.
  - wmf 1y ago
    For one thing Apple dropped 32-bit before they transitioned to ARM while Windows compatibility goes back 30 years.
    - rock_artist 1y ago
      Actually, the Macho file format was multiarch by design (On Windows we're still stuck with Program Files (x86)).. Anyway, before dropping 32bit, they've dropped PowerPC. Another consideration, Apple is the king of dylib, you're usually dynamically linking to the OS frameworks/libs. so they can actually plan their glue smarter so the frameworks would still work in native arch. (that was really important with PPC->Intel where you also had big endian...)
      - winocm 1y ago
        You also get "Program Files (ARM)" (including a complementary "SysArm32") on older arm64 systems too.
ack_complete 1y ago
Ironically, the app I've had the most trouble with is Visual Studio 2022. Since it has a native ARM64 build and installation of the x64 version is blocked, there are a bunch of IDE extensions that are unavailable.
puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago
X Elite does not have AVX instructions (they are emulated instead)

Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No." The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!

tobias3 1y ago
For me it is too slow to run Age of Empires 2: DE multiplayer. More than ten year old Laptops with Intel chips are faster there.
- nulld3v 1y ago
  I suspect that's due to the GPU and not due to Prism, because they basically just took a mobile GPU and stuffed it into a laptop chip. Generally performance seems to be on par with whatever a typical flagship Android devices can do. Desktop games that have mobile ports generally seem to run well, emulation is pretty solid too (e.g. Dolphin). Warcraft III runs OK-ish.
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    The GPUs don't go toe-to-toe with current gen desktop GPUs but they should be significantly better than the GTX 650, a mid range desktop GPU from 2012, the game (2019) lists as recommended. It does sound like something odd is going on than just lack of hardware. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+Elite+-+X1E78100+-+Qualcomm+Adreno+GP&id=5096 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+... https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+650&id=2155 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+6...
    - TiredOfLife 1y ago
      That something odd is called GPU drivers. Even Intel struggled (they recently announced that they are dropping all gpu driver older than Alchemist development) to get games running on their iGpus
    - nulld3v 1y ago
      There are also some architectural differences between mobile & desktop GPUs which may impact games that are not optimized for the platform: https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-snapdragon-x-elites-adreno-igpu https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-snapdragon-x-elites-adreno-...
GeekyBear 1y ago
That's certainly not what the reviews say. Adobe apps that ran fine on Rosetta didn't work at all on Prism. https://www.pcmag.com/articles/how-well-does-windows-on-arms-prism-emulation-work-we-tested-with-31-apps# https://www.pcmag.com/articles/how-well-does-windows-on-arms...
Derbasti 1y ago
Same here. I've not had any issues with my Surface Pro 11.

christopher8827 1y ago

Most apps for dev work actually work; - RStudio - VS Code - WSL2 - Fusion 360 - Docker Only major exception is: - Android Studio's Emulator (although, the IDE does work)

nulld3v 1y ago
Yeah, I too was surprised to find the dev experience very good: all JetBrains IDEs work well, Visual Studio appears to work fine, and most language toolchains seem well supported.
- MBCook 1y ago
  JetBrains stuff (love it!) is built on Java, so I’m not terribly surprised. I don’t know how much native code there is though. Plus they’ve been through the Apple Silicon change, so it’s not the first time they’ve been on non-x86 either.

electroly 1y ago

Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible [EDIT: see reply, I might be mistaken on this]. Creation of a recovery drive for a Snapdragon-based Surface (which you have to do from a working Snapdragon-based Surface) requires typing your serial code into a Microsoft website, then downloading a .zip of drivers that you manually overwrite onto the recovery media that Windows 11 creates for you. Day-to-day, it's all fine, but I may be returning to x64 next time around. I'm not sure that I'm receiving an offsetting benefit for these downsides. Battery life isn't something that matters for me.

brokencode 1y ago
That’s brutal.. I wonder why the Apple Silicon transition seemed so much smoother in comparison.
- wmf 1y ago
  For one thing Apple dropped 32-bit before they transitioned to ARM while Windows compatibility goes back 30 years.
  - rock_artist 1y ago
    Actually, the Macho file format was multiarch by design (On Windows we're still stuck with Program Files (x86)).. Anyway, before dropping 32bit, they've dropped PowerPC. Another consideration, Apple is the king of dylib, you're usually dynamically linking to the OS frameworks/libs. so they can actually plan their glue smarter so the frameworks would still work in native arch. (that was really important with PPC->Intel where you also had big endian...)
    - winocm 1y ago
      You also get "Program Files (ARM)" (including a complementary "SysArm32") on older arm64 systems too.

ack_complete 1y ago

Ironically, the app I've had the most trouble with is Visual Studio 2022. Since it has a native ARM64 build and installation of the x64 version is blocked, there are a bunch of IDE extensions that are unavailable.

puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago

X Elite does not have AVX instructions (they are emulated instead)