Snapdragon 8 Elite Lacks AVX And F16C Support, Which Explains Why Ghost Of Tsushima, A Relatively Less Demanding Game, Runs Poorly On It Using Emulation

One of the more impressive feats of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite is its ability to run AAA games fluidly while using emulation, which makes the chipset’s capabilities even more admirable, knowing that there is always some performance left on the table when programs do not run natively on a platform. We have seen the SoC achieve a stable 60FPS when running Cyberpunk 2077 at the low settings while obtaining more than double the framerate compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 when testing A Plague Tale: Innocence.

However, the case is not the same for all titles, with new gameplay footage showing that the Snapdragon 8 Elite struggles immensely when running Ghost Of Tsushima. Despite Sucker Punch Productions developing the game to run on a PS4, as revealed in our review from a few years ago, a few people have pointed out that the lack of AVX and F16C support explains the chipset’s lackluster performance. This can become a problem later on when running different games using emulation.

Ghost Of Tsushima cannot even maintain 30FPS on the Snapdragon 8 Elite when running using emulation

AVX, or Advanced Vector Extensions, is a set of instructions added to the x86 architecture that allows compatible processors to perform more demanding functions when used with compatible software. As for F16C, it too is an instruction set that provides support for converting floating-point numbers, and it helps optimize performance by reducing the amount of memory used, which speeds up physics simulation and graphics rendering without sacrificing image quality extensively.

With both instruction sets missing from the Snapdragon 8 Elite, a video on the Chinese content uploading website Bilibili shows why Ghost Of Tsushima runs poorly, with the game unable to touch 30FPS. What is surprising is that a title like Cyberpunk 2077, which flaunts better visuals, can run at significantly higher framerates, and that is because the title’s AVX requirement was removed after launch. It might not be such a big deal because only one game with AVX support has been tested on Qualcomm’s latest and greatest silicon, but this revelation reveals some cracks in the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s armor.

Then again, we should give credit to the Snapdragon 8 Elite for even running the game in the first place because we have mentioned time and time again that there was a time when it was unheard of to run such programs, let alone impossible for a smartphone chipset to fire up AAA games. Hopefully, when the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 arrives next year with SME (Scalable Matrix Extension) support, Qualcomm can address these gaming concerns too.

News Source: Bilibili