Qualcomm Snapdragon chips have led the market in laptops that offer an epically long battery, but they have a weakness: games. Qualcomm announced Thursday that it would enable Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat Software, as well the popular multiplayer game Fortnite to run on Snapdragon.
This service is probably more important than the other. Epic, like many other multiplayer games that require anti-cheat software, must be added to prevent cheating. But it’s not enough to just have it installed. It should also run at kernel level in order to minimize CPU consumption.
Qualcomm claims to have done this. Fortnite will be available on Windows on Arm devices powered by Snapdragon chips later this year. Qualcomm has said that it is “working” with Epic in order to bring Easy Anti-Cheat on the platform.
Until now, Windows on Arm has been dominated by X86 CPUs. Qualcomm is clearly looking to change this. Some games work, like Control and Qualcomm says it is working to ensure compatibility with popular games and processors. Qualcomm hasn’t supported its aggressive position of a year ago, that most games would run on the Snapdragon Elite. Its stance now is that the optimization process won’t be finished.
Compatibility will help, but compatibility with “platform” services such as Easy Anti-Cheat is key.
“Hundreds today’s multi-player games, including Fortnite, rely on Easy Anti-Cheat for countering hacking and cheating within multiplayer PC games,” Qualcomm stated. “In addition, we will release Epic Online Services SDK to provide developers with anti-cheat support in Fortnite on Windows on Snapdragon. This will allow developers to use Easy Anti-Cheat in their own games. “
It is to Qualcomm’s credit that it has moved quickly to address areas where third party software did not run on its processors, like apps like Google Drive and certain VPNs. Dave Durnil is the global head for gaming and Snapdragon Studios. He told reporters in a conference call on Thursday that the company had worked with other anticheat services such as BattleEye, and the anticheat software built into Roblox.
Durnil said: “We’re in on PC gaming. We’re all for it.”
Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld.
Mark has been writing for PCWorld since the last decade. He has 30 years experience covering technology. He has written over 3,500 articles, covering PC microprocessors and peripherals, Microsoft Windows, and other topics, for PCWorld. Mark has written for PC Magazine, Byte and eWEEK as well as Popular Science, Electronic Buyers’ News and Electronic Buyers’ News. He also shared a Jesse H. Neal Award with Popular Science for breaking news. He recently gave away a collection consisting of several dozen Thunderbolt Docks and USB-C Hubs, because his office has no room.
