- Latest Windows 11 update includes important feature for Arm CPUs
- Introduces support for AVX and AVX2 with Prism emulation
- Some PC games use these extensions and previously didn’t work with Snapdragon X chips, but now they should.
Microsoft just gave Windows 11 laptops with Arm processors better gaming (and software, too) support thanks to the latest operating system update.
Windows Latest reports that the October 2025 update (KB5066835) for Windows 11 (both versions 24H2 and 25H2, which are essentially the same) comes with a big update for Prism. This is Microsoft’s emulation layer for running x86 (AMD and Intel) apps and games on Arm chips like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X.
Not all games work with Prism and one problem area has been titles that use AVX or AVX2. These are extensions to the x86 instruction set that, at a basic level, perform some fancy CPU tricks to run faster, and now Prism can handle those extensions. (And others besides, including BMI, FMA, F16C and more, but AVX is the main advancement here.)
In short, some games using AVX or AVX2 that didn’t load will now work, so gamers have a wider range of Windows support on Arm.
As mentioned, it’s not just games, but software too, and that includes some Adobe Creative Cloud apps, for example, which those with a Snapdragon X laptop haven’t had access to before.
Analysis: a year of waiting
This expanded support for Prism entered testing almost a year ago (in November 2024, in fact), so it took Microsoft quite a while to work on this and get it out of preview.
Windows Latest tested the improved version of Arm emulation and found that it allowed most of the PC games in your Steam collection to launch and run successfully. However, the tech site noted that there was “highly variable performance” from game to game.
Reports on Reddit reflect this, so unfortunately this is not a panacea for all AVX-related gaming issues on Windows 11 with Arm. We should also keep in mind that emulating a game or app will always have some overhead and performance will never be as good as running native software (coded for Arm, rather than AMD x86 or Intel).
Still, Microsoft finally getting this new feature for Prism Live is a big step forward, even if it took a long time. While complaints persist about the frequency of Qualcomm GPU updates (integrated Adreno) and hardware driver compatibility issues with Windows on Arm in general, progress is definitely being made to make Arm laptops a more reliable platform. Anti-cheat tools also continue to be an issue for players, but a fix is finally being worked on and seems imminent.
