Any use for light gaming?

[breakingpoint0]

I'm very intrigued by the new Go, specifically the upgraded version. I do light gaming on my 8 year old laptop (Lenovo T430 with the 3rd Gen i5, 8GB RAM, Intel HD 4000): WoW, Guild Wars 2, FTL, stuff like that. I'm curious if anyone has tried using their new Go for any of that level of gaming. Nothing new or revolutionary, but older and graphically less intensive stuff. I will guess it's not the greatest, but maybe it's "good enough" territory? The other option I was considering is buying a Surface Pro, but I find the price of the Go much more attractive.

Let me know what you think!

 

[Hirox K]

Saw this the other day,
Go runs gta5 : https://youtu.be/_tjeYfPfxv8

Then I discovered this channel.
Go runs various games : https://www.youtube.com/user/josher14/videos?disable_polymer=1

 

[Dusteater]

I would want to use the Surface Go for touch first gaming. The main game I play these days is Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes on my iPhone. Unfortunately there are so few touch games in the Microsoft Store, this isn't a good device for gaming in the modern mobile era.

You can see the lack of commitment to touch games because the store has no way to even show you games that use touch input. The current state of mobile gaming on Windows is a disaster.

 

[ShaunKL]

I’m curious how it does with pre-2005 titles. Old games like Half-Life, Starcraft, Doom, dosbox, etc...

 

[richard_rsp]

I have played Cuphead at 1080p with no slowdown on my 4GB version. It did get pretty warm, but i still found it impressive!

 

[me2olive]

If you google comparisons between the Ivy Bridge HD 4000 graphics in your T430 and the Kaby Lake HD 615 that the Surface Go has (like this one) you'll note that the Go's GPU is quite an improvement. In practice, performance will depend on what the bottleneck is for any given game as heavily CPU dependent games will clearly suffer on the Go's 1.6 GHz CPU vs your 3.3 GHz i5. So, some games will run better and others will run worse.

 

[anon(5348220)]

I would want to use the Surface Go for touch first gaming. The main game I play these days is Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes on my iPhone. Unfortunately there are so few touch games in the Microsoft Store, this isn't a good device for gaming in the modern mobile era.

You can see the lack of commitment to touch games because the store has no way to even show you games that use touch input. The current state of mobile gaming on Windows is a disaster.

With bigger screen and ability to connect Xbox Controller I can see this is not biggest target for touch games. But there are still plenty of touch games. I'm not too familiar with latest touch games but here are some decent touch games I'm aware of (not sure how well they all work with Go in terms of performance):​

• Asphalt 9 was just released and fully touch supported
  [*=left]Pinball FX3 works with touch
  [*=left]Rayman series (Jungle Run/Fiesta Run)
  [*=left]Ilomilo old game but still good and works with touch
  [*=left]Microsoft casual games (Jigsaw, Sudoku, Minesweeper).
  [*=left]Tiny troopers series
  [*=left]Go games (Lara Croft / Hitman / Deus Ex (but didn't see those anymore in store)
  [*=left]ZeptoLab games like King of Thieves
  [*=left]Samorost 3 potentially. Didn't play it but seems it should be touch enabled fully

 

[timotim27]

Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead, Asphalt 9, Minecraft Story Mode Season 2, Alto's Adventure, Moonlighter, X-Morph: Defense, Fallout Shelter...most of these games can be played either with touch or gamepad...thats the versatility of Windows...and I can off load them to the 200GB SD card in my Go...I think gaming is looking good.

EDIT: More games! Enter the Gungeon, Full Metal Furies, Voodoo Vince, Halo Warsefinitive Edition, Hydro Thunder, Romancing Saga 2, Ruined, Riptide GP Renegade...and the beautiful thing is that these are connected to Xbox Live and cross-play with Xbox One in some cases...

 

[bulls96]

Anyone try steam yet on the 4gb version?

 

[ratsttam]

Anyone try steam yet on the 4gb version?

If it means anything, I have Steam installed on my Surface 3 (not Pro). Steam itself runs fine. Some older games on Steam also run great. And the Go is a HUGE improvement in power and 3d rendering over the 3 year old Surface 3


I understand the Surface Go starts off in "S" mode, so you need to convert it to "Home" edition first. This is free and is well documented throughout Windows Central.

 

[richard_rsp]

Anyone try steam yet on the 4gb version?

I have Steam on my 4gb. I haven't really tried many games, but the program runs fine.

Edit: Just tried Skyrim (off Steam) at 1800x1125 at Low settings and it was very playable. Pretty impressive for such a small device!

 

[bryansmi]

I installed Steam with no problems on the Go 8/128. Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 run great outputting video to a 4k monitor over USB-C. I found the games silky smooth and totally playable up to about 1280 x 1024. 1400 x 1050 is 90% slilky smooth but very occasionally starts to visibly drop a few frames. If I look at the GPU monitor, this is when the GPU utilization for 3d starts to hit 100%. At 1900 there are consistent frame skips. The game overall doesn't seem CPU bound and the Intel 615 GPU is actually pretty powerful. For scenes in these games with a lot of complexity (zombie hordes) there are some CPU-bound slowdowns, but overall totally playable. Silent Hunter IV runs great as well. I'd say any of the 2005-2008 era Win32 games should be absolutely playable.

Oh, and this is with the games installed on an external SD card

 

[AiyannaL]

Does anyone know of how The new Surface Go does with the download of Origin, Sims 3, Sims 4 (etc.)?