Surface Pro 2 Gaming

[apoc_reg]

I will be using it for gaming when I'm on holiday for sure.

 

[cedric5555]

May I ask if SP2 with 8gb ram can run these games? If not , I would just stay on 4GB ram and save $300.
I am not sure how the HD4400 compare to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti or ATI Radeon HD 5870

Thanks for the technical advise.

Watch Dogs:
Ubisoft just updated the minimum requirement. It required 6GB ram.
Watch Dogs' revised PC system requirements are even more demanding than the last ones - Watch Dogs for PC News
MINIMUM
Supported OS: Windows Vista SP2 64bit, Windows 7 SP1 64bit, Windows 8 64bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66Ghz or AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0Ghz
RAM: 6 GB
Video Card: 1024 VRAM DirectX 11 with Shader Model 5.0 (see supported list)
Sound Card: DirectX 9 compatible Sound Card
This product supports 64-bit operating systems ONLY



Call of Duty -Ghost requirement
•OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit
•CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHZ / AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHZ or better
•RAM: 6 GB RAM
•HDD: 50 GB HD space
•Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti / ATI Radeon HD 5870 or better
•Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
•DirectX: 11

 

[Zuldan]

Here's another article that talks about Surface Pro 2 gaming

Surface 2 Australian Hands-On: The People Spoke, And Microsoft Listened | Gizmodo Australia

"Gaming ability on the Surface Pro 2 is going to depend on the graphics hardware under the hood, if there’s any at all beyond the Intel Iris system running on the Haswell chips. We’ll have to wait and see. We played a few minutes of a Wipeout-style boating game on the Surface Pro 2 and noticed that the water effects were crisp and fluid, the game ran quickly with no stuttering or lag, and it had no problem letting us use the Xbox 360 controller as an external accessory. That’s what you want out of your portable gaming experience: something easy that works with what most people already have."

 

[Zuldan]

Microsoft are claiming 50% graphics improvement (officially) with the HD 4400. Many people say that the improvement will not be that high however they missed a small key point. If you watch the SP2 MS announcement you will hear Panos talking about the SP2 now having dual channel memory (SP1 has single channel). This means the CPU will have almost double the bandwidth at it's disposal. This also applies to the HD 4400 since it's integrated.

And here's one of the first reviews!

Microsoft Surface Pro 2 review: a tablet that works best as a laptop

The SP2 is smashing competition in performance and according to the benchmarks the 3DMark11 score has almost doubled compared with SP1.

LOL to all the people who said "the benchmarks will be the same as every other Haswell laptop"

I can't wait to crank DOTA 2 on this thing tomorrow.

*\cream pants*

 

[demandarin]

Microsoft are claiming 50% graphics improvement (officially) with the HD 4400. Many people say that the improvement will not be that high however they missed a small key point. If you watch the SP2 MS announcement you will hear Panos talking about the SP2 now having dual channel memory (SP1 has single channel). This means the CPU will have almost double the bandwidth at it's disposal. This also applies to the HD 4400 since it's integrated.

And here's one of the first reviews!

Microsoft Surface Pro 2 review: a tablet that works best as a laptop

The SP2 is smashing competition in performance and according to the benchmarks the 3DMark11 score has almost doubled compared with SP1.

LOL to all the people who said "the benchmarks will be the same as every other Haswell laptop"

I can't wait to crank DOTA 2 on this thing tomorrow.

*\cream pants*

Oh yeah..lol. Even on Anandtech review his gpu tests show a very large graphics improvement over pro1. CPU wise they about the same. Dual channel lpddr3 Ram makes a huge difference being paired with HD4400

 

[Dim-Ize]

Okay - I'm officially excited with this data. Wonder what's going on under the hood and how they're eeking out those improvements vs. similar products on the market. This is great news!!! I also anticipate the 8 GB models may even offer some marginal improvement beyond those benchmarks.

 

[demandarin]

yeah, its kind of amazing how the new pro performs, gpu wise compared to similar devices. they doing something right..haha im sure the 8gb version will perform even better. especially on higher demanding games with HD texures and other settings.

 

[eatmanga]

please any tried resident evil?? devil may cry?? or others like .exe game?

 

[hertsjoatmon]

please any tried resident evil?? devil may cry?? or others like .exe game?

I dont have those games, but I have had issues playing some old games not due to the Surface Pro 2, but due to Windows 8.1.
Gorky17 runs on but with a few bugs (you need to use version 2 of the exe file though), and I needed a 0.5GB patch to get Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines to work.
If its old, chances are it will work just so long as there is still a strong user community supporting it for windows 8.
I did some searches for the best games of the 90s and 00s to run on my Surface Pro and come up with the folowing list of steam games (in order of year of release).

XCOM (the original)
Half-life (all though Im playing the source remake)
Gorky 17
System Shock 2
GTA 3
Star Wars KotOR
Far Cry
Rome Total War
Thief
Vampire
Star Wars Battlefront II
Company of Heroes
Warhammer 40k
Elder Scrolls IV
The Witcher
Torchlight

2010 onwards

Bastion
Faster than Light
Final Fantasy VII

I'd recomend all of those games, none should stretch the Surface hardwear and other than the graphics, all stand the test of time for the gameplay. So pick them up cheap if you see them in a steam sale!

I also want

Black and white,
C&C red alert
Deus Ex
FEAR
Jedi Knight II
Settlers iV
Warcraft III

but either havent purchased them on steam or not found digital download for them.

As a rule I tend to set the settings at max quality at 1280 x 768 [edit: I mean 1366 x 768] and work back from there if needed. I prefer better textures etc. to higher resolution as, at 10.6 inches, the DPI is still fine despite not running at the Surface's native resoltion (148 vs 208 ppi). The jump to 1080 though results in double the amount of pixels needing to be processed (1049088 vs 2073600).

 

[horseflesh]

I want to play Faster Than Light on my bus ride home from work, but I can't find a way to play it without the trackpad.

If you set it to fullscreen, the stylus does not work as a pointer.

If it is windowed, the stylus still needs double-taps to work, plus the text is ridiculously small.

I posted on the developer's forum and they won't be fixing these problems because they are working on a new tablet version. It's too bad, I consider these Windows bugs and their future tablet version probably means Android, not Metro.

 

[Philtastic]

Some games that I've played on this SP2 are:
- Diablo 3 - works great at 720p and lowest details. Can set it higher but I like a smooth 30+ framerate
- Skyrim - Heavily modded, runs smoothly at medium at 720p with higher res textures
- Dynasty Warrior 8: Extreme Legends - Runs fantastic at 720p max details
- Legends of Grimrock - I think I have it at max details 720p
- Civilization V - Medium details 1080p
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Medium details 720p
- DosBox games seem to run well. I've played Ultima VII and Betrayal at Krondor on here so far.

It's run everything pretty solidly for a tablet. I can't complain but I'm looking forward to the improvements with Intel's Broadwell and the SP4!

 

[hertsjoatmon]

I posted on the developer's forum and they won't be fixing these problems because they are working on a new tablet version. It's too bad, I consider these Windows bugs and their future tablet version probably means Android, not Metro.

Yeah, they released the ipad and android versions about a month or two ago I think, its a shame they cant port the touch controls back over to the PC version.
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/FTL:+Faster+Than+Light/review.asp?c=58776&srch=faster+than+light
"A lot of clever design has gone into the port - little touches like swiping up and down to change the power levels of various systems, and automatically pausing when you target weapons"