Hi!
Welcome to Lachlan Likes A Thing, a show where I take a thing and see whether or not I like
it.
Now this video is what I said I would make in my Surface Pro 2 review video, and it's
a video specifically about what it's like to use the Surface Pro 2 as a gaming machine.
And I wanted to make this video not just to demonstrate the performance of the Surface
Pro 2 as a gaming machine but also to give you my impressions and my experiences of what
it's like to actually use the Surface Pro 2 as a portable device.
So not just the performance but how games actually look and how you can play them on
this 10" display, things like how the speakers on the Surface Pro 2 sound, things like how
the keyboard and the trackpad and the stylus work as input devices and whether other external
mice or controllers work well with the Surface Pro 2 and also things like battery life and
heat issues.
So hopefully this video will give you a demonstration of what it's like to use the Surface Pro 2
as a gaming machine and to do that I'm going to be showing you a bunch of different games
which I've listed in the description of this video.
It's not a comprehensive list but hopefully it will give you some idea of this machine's
capabilities.
So before we jump right into the games I just wanted to specify my Surface Pro 2 is the
256GB solid state drive / 8GB RAM model, and that comes with a 1.6GHz Core i5 4200U which
Turbo Boosts up to 2.6GHz and it has an Intel HD4400 GPU.
Recently Microsoft has begun shipping Surface Pro 2's with a 1.9GHz Core i5 4300U with a
Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz and I don't know if in a few months time the other specifications
on the Surface Pro 2 will change.
I honestly think that the CPU upgrade in the recent Surface Pro 2 probably isn't a huge
thing because, as far as gaming goes, the bottleneck is not going to be the CPU, it's
going to be the Intel 4400.
The Intel HD4400 in the Surface Pro 2 is a lot better than Intel's old integrated graphics
solutions, and it's good enough to run most games at 720P at low to medium graphics settings.
Here's Skyrim running 720P at medium quality settings, and you can see that the gameplay
is smooth and the visual effects are in line with what I would expect from an 8th generation
console like the Playstation 3.
While it would be nice to be able to run games at 1080P the Surface Pro 2 really struggles
with that.
But that's not such a bad thing because the Surface Pro 2 has such a small and high quality
pixel dense display that even at these lowered settings I think games look pretty good.
One thing to watch out for though is reflections from the glossy glass display.
Here's the Surface Pro 2 running Portal 2 and as you'll see the gameplay is very smooth
and very playable.
You can also see how the solid state drive keeps load times relatively zippy.
It used to be that the phrase 'Intel Integrated Graphics' would make me die a little inside
but honestly, this runs pretty well.
On an older title like this with twitchier controls the framerate is absolutely fantastic
and it's more than enough to get an enjoyable experience out of the Surface Pro 2 provided
that you use something like an external mouse or gamepad.
Actually the biggest problem with gaming on the Surface Pro 2 that I've found is not actually
performance, it's the Surface Pro 2's relatively small 10" display combined with the very high
pixel density.
On some games that were designed for larger screens the user interface elements are so
small that they become unreadable.
For example here's Paradox Software's Crusader Kings II, which was one of my favorite strategy
games of 2013.
On the Surface Pro 2 the UI is so dense that the game is almost rendered unplayable.
I have a similar problem with playing a game like Diablo 3 on this display, and here's
Diablo 3 running at 720P.
The performance is great, but the screen is so small that it can become a little difficult
to interpret of what's actually happening on screen, and I find that I have to use the
game's zoom function to get a closer view.
This seems to be a particular problem with PC strategy games.
Here's Civilization 5, which runs great on the Surface Pro 2 at 1080P, and it was patched
after launch with touchscreen control.
Please ignore the weird thing my camera is doing, the game looks absolutely great on
the Surface Pro 2 and the game is a joy to play.
However on the 10" display some of the text elements are still on the small side.
As a general rule I find that games that work best with the Surface Pro 2's display are
games that were originally designed for both console and PC because the user interfaces
are designed to be read from far away.
For instance there's XCom: Enemy Within running at 720P.
This was probably my favorite game of 2013 and you can see how the simplified user interface
really works well with the Surface Pro 2's display.
Keep in mind though that you aren't always going to be restricted by the Surface Pro
2's 10" display.
The Surface Pro has a mini-displayport out, which means that you can use a mini-displayport
to HDMI adaptor to send both video and audio to larger monitors and televisions.
Combine this with a gamepad or a wireless mouse and keyboard and Steam's Big Picture
mode and suddenly you have a pretty slick portable game console that you can carry around
in a laptop bag.
Here's the Surface Pro 2 running one of my favorite games of all time, Saints Row 3,
at 720P, on a 40" television.
Pretty cool huh?
Moving on to the audio of the Surface Pro 2 the Surface Pro 2 has greatly improved speakers
over the original Surface Pro and as long as you have realistic expectations they're
actually surprisingly good for gaming, with voices coming in clearly and a decent amount
of stereo separation.
However if you're worried about audio you're probably always going to be better off with
a good pair of headphones.
The headphone port on the Surface Pro also accepts microphone input from 4-pin headsets
like iPhone headphones or dedicated gaming headphones like the Audio Technica AG-1 which
has a 4-pin connection.
I've actually been using the Audio Technica AG-1 to record the voiceovers for this video
and this is actually a review unit loaned to me by Audio Technica Australia, so yes
I will be making a review of this gaming headset and if you haven't already and you're interested,
you should subscribe to my channel to be notified when that goes up.
Let's talk about controls.
The trackpads on the keyboard covers for the Surface tablets have never been really that
great, and they are downright awful for gaming.
Because of their small size they are only barely adequate for slow paced games or turn
based games where you can pause the action.
In some games you can kind of get away with using the stylus instead of an external mouse.
For instance here's Simcity running at 1600x900 and I'm using the stylus for input.
However it gets pretty frustrating with your hand blocking most of the display and the
fact that the stylus itself doesn't have a scrollwheel makes some functions like zooming
in and out downright frustrating.
In the end you're probably going to be better off with a separate mouse, and preferably
a Bluetooth one so you don't take up the Surface Pro's only USB port.
I use the Microsoft Sculpt Touch mouse which I got something like $30 and I think it's
pretty good.
However if you're serious about your games you can probably get a dedicated bluetooth
gaming mouse like the Razer Orochi.
However I actually find my favorite way of playing games on the Surface Pro 2 is by using
a gamepad.
It offers the most comfortable experience and most games that work with gamepads are
console or indie games that also tend to work well with the Surface Pro 2's relatively small
display.
I prefer using the XBox 360 USB controller because it's cheap, doesn't require any drivers
to set up, and the button prompts on the controller actually match what's on the screen with most
games.
This is a pretty critical for games with quick time events like Telltale Software's The Wolf
Among Us, which as you can see looks absolutely fantastic on the Surface Pro 2's display running
at 720P.
Lastly, there's the issues of heat and battery life while gaming the Surface Pro 2.
The Surface Pro 2 does get hot and the fans do kick up under load, but that's not a huge
problem because most of the time your body isn't actually in direct contact with the
heat.
Remember that the in the Surface Pro 2 the CPU and GPU are in the display section and
not the keyboard section of the tablet.
What you'll probably notice more is that the Surface Pro 2's battery life goes from 8 hours
to about 1-3 hours while running games.
Thankfully, the Surface Pro's charger is relatively compact.
That said, once you start carrying around a charger and extra input peripherals for
the Surface Pro 2, it quickly starts to get less practical to carry around.
When PC support for the wireless Xbox One and PS4 controller improves, that will be
a big boon for gaming portability on the Surface Pro.
So overall I think the Surface Pro 2 makes for a surprisingly versatile gaming machine
though there are some limitations especially because of the relatively small display.
But on the flip side that means that the Surface Pro 2 is really portable and it's really easy
to set up in random situations where you want to get a few hours of gaming in, and that's
one of the main strengths of the Surface Pro 2 as a portable gaming device.
Now I don't think the hardware is high performing enough to replace a dedicated gaming laptop
if that was your main priority, but the Surface Pro 2 makes for an excellent machine that
you can get some work done, but also play some games on, and that's really awesome.
Anyway thanks for watching this video, please click the 'Like' button if you found it helpful
and subscribe to my channel for more reviews.
Thanks to all my regular subscribers and I'm looking forward to your comments.
You can talk to me on Facebook at facebook.com/lachlanlikesathing or on Twitter @lachlikesathing.
Anyway enjoy the rest of your day!