On maximum 'Epic' settings, Overwatch struggled to maintain 20 FPS on my Surface Book, but it was still vaguely playable. Blizzard Entertainment is known for their quality PC games, and Overwatch is incredibly well optimized. Overwatch features 6v6 battles taking place in closed, stylized arenas. It might not be the most graphically intensive game out there, but it is current. Moving away from the Universal Windows Platform, I decided to give one of my favorite games of this generation a try: Overwatch. See Killer Instinct on the Windows Store (opens in new tab) Overwatch While the visuals and effects suffer a little, Killer Instinct is impressively optimized for play on the Surface Book's d-GPU. Killer Instinct suffers immeasurably when the frame rate isn't smooth, due to the nature of its responsive combo-breaker gameplay, making the trade-off more than worth it for portable play. It launched initially for Xbox One and eventually made its way across to the Windows 10 Store, complete with DLC purchase and progression synchronization. Killer Instinct is a free-to-play fighting game based on the classic Rare fighter of the 90s. I simply had to test out Killer Instinct, due to the fact it was one of the first titles to be part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program. See Gears of War Ultimate Edition on the Windows Store (opens in new tab) Killer Instinct While Gears of War was never going to look as gorgeous or run as smoothly as it does on Xbox One or a high-end PC, being able to play Gears on the go is a welcome plus to one of the most portable Windows 10 laptops on the market. I'm reluctant to point the finger at UWP without knowing for certain, but the effects of lowering the visuals on Win32 titles seems far more pronounced. It's a tad strange that I couldn't get any performance boost out of Gears by lowering the settings further. Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is perfectly viable on the Surface Book with V-sync disabled with mid-range settings. Gears of War - Medium quality settings, 20 to 35 frames per second.

Windows surface book