The upcoming RTX Spark PCs—the first consumer laptops with all Nvidia chips in more than a decade—are increasingly trying to prove they’re gaming PCs, rather than just a new vehicle built to push AI in your face. At Gamescom this week, Nvidia shared that it had pulled even more major publishers into supporting the company’s ostensibly powerful PCs.
That includes Ubisoft, the developer behind franchises like Assassin’s Creed. Nvidia promised games like Anno 117: Pax Romana would be compatible natively on RTX Spark laptops alongside future titles. Back in July, Nvidia said it had nailed down legacy Japanese publisher Sega, which promised to port some current and future titles to ARM for the sake of RTX Spark.
If there’s one thing that held back the Windows on ARM revolution, it was software support. That seems to be changing. Nvidia says there are other, smaller studios joining in on the fun, like Embark, which is promising compatibility with Arc Raiders and The Finals. EA is also supposed to provide Javelin Anticheat support to ARM, which means you’ll be able to play Apex Legends on RTX Spark. These join games from other studios like IO Interactive (Hitman World of Assasination, 007: First Light), Capcom (Resident Evil), Remedy (Control, Alan Wake II), and—of course—Microsoft’s own Xbox brand.
Nvidia has yet to grant us a good idea exactly how many games will be available natively with working ARM builds when RTX Spark hits the scene this fall. Even with these announcements, the majority of your Steam library will require emulation to play. Nvidia at least seems to have nailed all the major anti-cheat systems for multiplayer. Alongside EA’s Javelin, there’s Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, and Denuvo, which should (emphasis on the “should“) run without issue.
Nvidia is effectively future-proofing its concept for PCs—a kind of MacBook Pro alternative with all the efficiency and iGPU (integrated graphics processing unit) potential high-end PCs lacked without requiring a power-hungry discrete GPU. Whether they’re actually more powerful than Apple’s M-series chips is another question entirely, but it may not matter nearly as much. By pushing Windows compatibility first, Nvidia can emphasize that you don’t need to abandon your favorite hobbies to buy its inevitably expensive laptops.
The good thing about Nvidia pushing ARM is that publishers have fewer excuses to get their games on more platforms. We should expect to see more native builds of games for Macs in the future. Laptops with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X and X2 series chips will receive the same software support, even if only Nvidia’s laptops can claim access to upscaling software, like the newly released DLSS 4.5 ray reconstruction.
There’s much to be said about Nvidia’s recent moves away from PC gaming. It instead imagines itself as an AI company that can simultaneously supply the necessary GPUs and bankroll the buildout for the AI revolution. That refocus on AI has pushed more unpopular AI hyperscalers into communities that increasingly do not want them. The data center buildout has created a memory drought so bad that it has inflated product prices of practically every gaming console and PC component, even Nvidia’s own GPUs. Neither Nvidia nor any of its partners has shared pricing info for its RTX Spark PCs. From what we’ve seen so far, we’d be surprised if any of these laptops don’t cost way more than $3,000.
And despite all that, and beyond the SNAFU of the slopified visuals of DLSS 5 (still supposed to be coming out later this year), Nvidia is providing one major boon for gamers—the opportunity to play major titles and upcoming blockbusters on more types of PC.
