Following the official unveiling of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, several Chinese smartphone manufacturers are gearing up to launch flagship devices powered by the new SoC. These phones will hit the Chinese market this October, with global availability expected by the end of the year or early 2025.
Qualcomm touts significant performance improvements for the 8 Elite, and early benchmarks seem to confirm this. A recent 3DMark Steel Nomad Light benchmark suggests the Adreno 830 GPU surpasses the Radeon 780M, the integrated graphics card found in popular gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally X and Legion Go.
Snapdragon 8 Elite confirmed to have Linux support
Adding another layer of intrigue is the confirmation by Qualcomm’s Director of Engineering that the Snapdragon 8 Elite boasts native Linux support.
The support will be available for the SoC from day one, certainly exciting news for the mobile game emulation scene. The current Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 already shows promise for emulating PC titles with tools like Winlator and Mobox.
In a recent demo by ETA Prime, games like Fallout 4, Bioshock Remastered, and Far Cry run at playable frame rates on the Galaxy S24 Ultra with the 8 Gen 3. With proper Linux support, the Snapdragon 8 Elite could push mobile emulation even further.
It’s essential to keep in mind that emulation often results in some performance loss compared to native experiences. However, the raw power of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, combined with native Linux support, creates opportunities for a significant advancement in mobile emulation capabilities.
With the hardware in place, the key remaining hurdle is to convince developers to port their PC games to the Android platform. This process may take time, so for now, emulation is the best alternative for Android users to experience PC games on their Snapdragon 8 Elite phone.
(Via)
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