Surface Pro for Gaming - What have you installed? Issues?

[Elliott Pointer]

I'll second that. I've seen YouTube videos of it running on a Surface Pro, but no mention of the settings used to get it to run. Can it run with decent graphics settings? As that's kind of a decider for me.

 

[TheJoester09]

What about Star Wars: The Old Republic?

SWTOR works great for me! I had to set the graphics to medium, but it ran without a hitch!

 

[sashlon]

SWTOR works great for me! I had to set the graphics to medium, but it ran without a hitch!

Awesome. Thanks for the info. I'm getting a Surface Pro in July, and I although I'm not a big gamer, I want to run TOR and Civ 5 on it.

 

[zulu69]

I'll second that. I've seen YouTube videos of it running on a Surface Pro, but no mention of the settings used to get it to run. Can it run with decent graphics settings? As that's kind of a decider for me.

All my videos have the settings in them!

BTE here is Star Wars: The Old Republic on the surface Pro. It's an older video so expect it to run faster with the latest graphics drivers and firmware updates.

Star Wars - The Old Republic Gaming on Microsoft Surface Pro - YouTube

 

[zulu69]

Just a heads up that I've uploaded some more games running including (ironically) Gears Of War. Have to say, I have been pleasantly surprised with surface's gaming prowess (intel 4000hd). Haswell will be a beast and may honestly be good enough for a gaming rig (albeit with lower resolution).

 

[TheJoester09]

Is anyone concerned about the heat this thing produces while gaming? I understand that all computers get hot while using graphic-intensive applications, but this form factor is relatively new to the market, and this thing wasn't exactly designed with gaming in mind. Is this bad for the battery? How negatively could this impact the machine in the long-term? Just for reference, I use it for gaming for maybe an hour or two per day. Maybe a bit more on the weekends.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Toast95135]

The SP doesn't get that hot, my old Macbook would get so hot it felt like it could almost burn you.

 

[TheJoester09]

Yeah, it doesn't get abnormally hot (I don't think), but I just worry a bit about taxing a device like this that wasn't necessarily designed for gaming. I'm probably worrying for nothing!

 

[prjkthack]

So played a little Battlefield 3 last night, and on the lowest settings its a bit choppy. Turned down the resolution to 720p as well, and for some reason it won't scale to the whole screen. Other games will at lower resolutions, so not sure why BF3 won't do it.

Guild Wars 2 is totally playable, so are lots of Steam games, and I'm trying more as I go along.

That being said, I'm pretty impressed with the performance, and I know this nor anything else similarly spec'd won't play the latest and greatest games, but its still been pretty awesome so far to be able to get stuff running on this PC-in-a-tablet form factor.

Gonna download Dead Space 3 and give CoD4 a try.

 

[gedzum]

Looks like there's a problem with Origin on Surface Pro. I installed it and it seems to think that I'm running in a VM. Other's have already reported the same issue to EA: EA Forums So, no BF3 until that gets sorted out.

Thanks for the link. Any one else running origin here that can give some more feedback? I'm considering surface pro and may want to play some of the Command & Conquer games.

Judging from some the games you guys were able to play, am I safe in assuming the likes of Torchlight 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be fine as well?

 

[prjkthack]

Thanks for the link. Any one else running origin here that can give some more feedback? I'm considering surface pro and may want to play some of the Command & Conquer games.

Judging from some the games you guys were able to play, am I safe in assuming the likes of Torchlight 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be fine as well?

You don't need that special version anymore. The current public release of Origin fixes any issues with the Surface Pro. Origin itself works great, and the big buttons and boxes make it a much more touch friendly interface that some other fairly popular gaming service.

Battlefield 3 was choppy, and I probably wouldn't play it much on Surface Pro, but I imagine that some people will be able to tolerate it.
Dead Space 3 worked great. Looked great and was pretty smooth, though some slight slow down here and there.
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit worked great on lower settings. Totally playable.
Burnout Paradise also playable.

I have C&C4, but I haven't given it a go yet.

 

[gedzum]

^Awesome, thanks mate. Hopefully I can get my hands on one soon and try it out for myself. UK release can't come fast enough.

 

[ncarty97]

Sorry for the necro bump, but this seemed the most appropriate thread.

Any solutions to problems with the mouse cursor not tracking the pen properly in some games? I haven't tried that many games, but so far:

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (and BG2) work great with the pen. So does Spiderweb's Avadon

However, anything in DosBox or other older games (Just tried Fallout), the cursor doesn't match up with where the pen actually is. I've tried disabling the scaling, even ran Fallout at the full 1080p resolution, and its just off. Its off a different amount each time too. Any solutions? I've been enjoying gaming during my daily subway commute, but there aren't that many modern games that are good for a trip like that (standing a lot).