Snapdragon 8 Elite Improves PC Game Emulation Performance With Linux Support

Qualcomm officially launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite (photo: x @DatenDose ·)

JAKARTA - After Qualcomm officially launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite, several smartphone manufacturers from China are preparing to release this latest flagship device with chips. Scheduled to be present on the Chinese market in October, the device will be available globally by the end of the year or early 2025.

Snapdragon 8 Elite promises a significant performance improvement, as seen in 3DMark Steel Nomad Light benchmark showing its 830 Adreno GPU outperforms the 780M Radeon, a graphics card widely used on popular gaming devices such as ROG Ally X and Legion Go.

Interestingly, the Snapdragon 8 Elite has been confirmed to have built-in Linux support since its initial launch. This was conveyed by the Technical Director of Qualcomm, adding to the appeal of this chip, especially among fans of mobile game emulations. Previous chips, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, have shown the potential to run PC titles through tools such as Winlator and Mobox.

In a recent demo by ETA Prime, games like Fallout 4, Bioshock Remastered, and Far Cry can run on a fairly good frame rate on the Galaxy S24 Ultra with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. With full Linux support, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is expected to further push the performance of PC game emulation on mobile devices.

Although emulations often experience a decline in performance compared to the experience of playing natively, the strength of Snapdragon 8 Elite and Linux support open up great opportunities for the advancement of mobile emulation.

The next challenge is to encourage developers to port their PC games to the Android platform, which may take time. For now, emulation remains the best alternative for Android users who want to experience playing PC games on the Snapdragon 8 Elite device.