How well does a microsoft surface pro X play games?

Hi AnTheCactus,

Thank you for the response. I agree with DomFriant points also on gaming with the Surface Pro X. We respected your decision to just return the Surface. Thank you also for spending time here with us in the Community.

Kind regards,
Marrion

Just bought a surface pro x, didn't expect too much but it does have quite the limitation. When I try to boot up games like league of legends or persona 5 royal (quite the heavy game to be fair) it crashes after trying to load for a minute. I'm not too knowledgable in terms of specs but is it fair to assume that it can't run these games? I've looked up a bit but I've seen people at least can play league so how come mine can't boot up anything before crashing shortly after?

I've got a Pro X. I don't consider it a gaming PC so for me, any games it can play is just a bonus. The GPUs in any of the Surface models aren't all that powerful, so it's going to be a compromise whichever one you get. The Pro X does have the additional disadvantage of having to run most games via emulation due to the ARM processor, so there may be an incompatibility or performance hit due to that as well.

So all that said, it's kind of hit and miss on the Pro X. I've found some games work flawlessly, others will just crash like you experienced. I've had better luck with older games, but some newer games will run. Since the catalog of PC games is so huge odds are I will never run out of games to play, though whatever I'm into at the moment may or may not work well on my Surface.

Just my two cents.

Hello Marrion,

I downloaded the windows version of League of Legends off their website and downloaded the other game on steam. I took your advice and tried running the surface diagnostic toolkit and found out that my driver and windows update were essentially broken. I dove further in and found out to fix the driver on a surface pro x, I'd need to go through the windows update, which itself was broken. I think I'll be returning my surface pro because of this. Thank you so much for your help, I didn't even know there was a surface diagnostic toolkit.

Much thanks,

AnTheCactus

Hi AnTheCactus,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community.

May I know from which platform did you install these games on your Surface Pro X?

Surface Pro X is a Windows ARM based device in which drivers for hardware, games and apps will only work if designed for a Windows ARM-based device. Please see this page for more details about Windows ARM: ARM-based Surface devices FAQ - Surface | Microsoft Learn

Please also try running the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit on the device then see if still these games crashes when you launch them on your Surface. See: Fix common Surface problems using the Surface app and Surface Diagnostic Toolkit - Microsoft Support

Kind regards,
Marrion