The slow rise of Arm in PC gaming
Arm versus x86 has been a long running rivalry in the world of processors. For years, x86 chips from Intel and AMD have dominated desktop and laptop PCs, especially for gaming. Arm has mostly lived in phones, tablets, and low power devices.
2025 was supposed to be the year that changed, with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X bringing Arm into mainstream Windows laptops and even PC gaming. On paper the chip looked strong, and there was a lot of hype around its gaming potential.
In reality that big gaming breakthrough has not happened yet. Snapdragon X machines are out there, but they have not shaken up PC gaming in the way early marketing hinted. Even so, there are now clear signs that Arm powered PCs and gaming rigs are coming, just on a slightly slower timeline than many expected.
The core idea behind all this is simple. Modern Arm CPU cores are extremely fast, especially in single core performance, which is crucial for many games. Apple’s M series chips and newer Arm designs from Qualcomm show that Arm can outperform traditional x86 cores from Intel and AMD when running native code. The challenge is everything around that raw performance.
Why gaming on Arm is still messy
The biggest problem holding back Arm based gaming PCs right now is software. Almost all existing Windows games are built and compiled for x86 CPUs. Arm machines have to emulate that x86 code, which adds overhead and can break compatibility.
On Windows on Arm laptops like those with Snapdragon X, Microsoft’s Prism emulation layer is responsible for translating x86 games to run on Arm. Qualcomm’s early marketing pushed gaming hard, but that was risky for a few reasons:
- Very few games are compiled natively for Arm, so almost everything runs through emulation.
- Prism emulation adds performance cost and sometimes outright prevents games from launching.
- Snapdragon X uses integrated Adreno graphics, which are decent for a low power laptop but nowhere near a full desktop GPU.
Microsoft has made solid progress, though. A major Prism update at the end of 2024 added support for AVX and AVX2 instructions, which many modern games use. That change alone allowed a lot more titles to run, and today most popular games will at least start on Snapdragon X systems. There is even a large community maintained compatibility list that tracks which games work and how well.
The flip side is that performance is still inconsistent. Games listed as running perfectly can swing from smooth to choppy, depending on scene complexity, resolution, and just how the emulation behaves with that particular title.
Online multiplayer support has also improved. Microsoft now supports native anti cheat on Windows on Arm, starting with Easy Anti Cheat in partnership with Epic and Qualcomm. That means games like Fortnite can finally be played legitimately on Arm based Windows machines, which is a big step for mainstream acceptance.
Qualcomm is not stopping with the first generation. The upcoming Snapdragon X2 claims the company’s biggest advance in PC gaming so far, with higher clocks and better integrated graphics. But it is still fundamentally a low power mobile style SoC that relies on the same emulation approach. Without native Arm game builds and without support for discrete GPUs on proper gaming platforms, it will not deliver a true revolution on its own.
Nvidia, Valve, and the road to 2028
The most exciting new player in the Arm PC space is Nvidia. The company has confirmed that its upcoming Arm chip for PCs is based on the GB10 superchip already used in its DGX Spark AI systems. In graphics terms, GB10 has an integrated GPU roughly equivalent to a desktop RTX 5070. That would make it by far the most powerful graphics solution ever seen in an Arm based APU.
This could be a huge deal for compact gaming PCs and laptops. Imagine a single chip with CPU cores and RTX class graphics built in. However, there are some serious caveats for gaming:
- Nvidia is using standard Arm Cortex cores, not custom cores tuned for x86 style workloads.
- Qualcomm and Apple have built special hardware features into their designs to make x86 emulation smoother. Cortex cores likely lack these tricks.
- Prism is mostly tuned for Snapdragon X today. It will need major work for Nvidia’s platform, or Nvidia will need its own translation layer.
So even though Nvidia’s first Arm chip may be a monster on paper, it will face the same fundamental issues as Snapdragon X when it comes to existing PC games. The real long term hope lies in Nvidia’s next CPU architecture, codenamed Vera, which uses custom Arm cores with much higher performance and potentially more flexibility for x86 emulation. Nvidia has not confirmed whether Vera class cores will come to consumer PCs yet, but the fact they now design their own Arm cores at all is a strong signal.
Valve is another important piece of the puzzle. While its newest Steam Machine is still an x86 device, Valve’s Steam Frame VR headset runs on an Arm based Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and uses a new Arm version of SteamOS. To make PC games work there, Valve built its own x86 translation layer called FEX.
SteamOS on Arm is early and mostly focused on VR right now, but it shows that one of the most influential companies in PC gaming is actively investing in Arm platforms. If Valve can get big parts of the Steam library running well on Arm powered SteamOS devices, that momentum could spill over into laptops, handhelds, and even desktops.
Putting all of this together, the timeline for true Arm powered PC gaming still looks stretched. Snapdragon X2 is nice but not groundbreaking. Nvidia’s first GB10 based PC chip will likely be powerful but limited by compatibility issues. Realistically, the big shift looks more like a 2027 to 2028 event, driven by second generation Arm designs from Nvidia and others, better x86 translation layers on both Windows and SteamOS, and hopefully more native Arm builds of major game engines and titles.
If that happens, we could finally see Arm go head to head with x86 at the high end of PC gaming, with faster single core performance, powerful integrated graphics options, and a new wave of energy efficient gaming laptops and compact rigs.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/processors/pc-gaming-on-arm-chips-didnt-quite-happen-in-2025-but-the-die-is-cast-for-an-epic-battle-with-x86-cpus-in-the-next-few-years/
