How Windows Is Being Optimized for Nvidia's RTX Spark Laptops
Microsoft and Nvidia last week celebrated the unveiling of the first wave of RTX Spark laptops in San Francisco, where the new generation of AI PCs took center stage before a crowd packed into a bustling venue. A day after the media event, I was invited to a quieter Nvidia event to hear […]
Microsoft and Nvidia celebrated the launch of the first wave of RTX Spark laptops last week in San Francisco, where a new wave of AI PCs took center stage to a packed crowd and a vibrant area. A day after the media event, I was invited to a quieter Nvidia event to hear more about the new RTX Spark computing platform. While Nvidia's new laptops may look like regular Windows machines, the chips inside are Arm-based, rather than the traditional x64 architecture used by AMD and Intel. The RTX Spark, along with a powerful GPU, is designed for the future of artificial intelligence, which means a lot of work has gone into getting these laptops ready for launch.
One of the biggest challenges was preparing Windows for AI agents and local AI models. RTX Spark's big selling point is the combination of an Arm CPU, Blackwell GPU and integrated memory to run powerful AI models on a laptop, so the experience of running an AI agent should be quick and easy.
"When users log into Windows for the first time, they'll see a new Get Started experience launched on an RTX Spark laptop that lets them find the agent they want, get started with that agent, install it, and get to that agent in just two clicks," said Peter Dowd, Microsoft's principal program manager.
Agents can be installed and updated through the Windows Store, so you don't have to worry about finding updates or figuring out the dependencies each requires. We'll continue to develop it and add more features that will give agents a whole new set of experiences through Windows,” says David.
Hermes, Perplexity, and OpenClaw are the first three agents officially supported on Windows at RTX Spark launch, but Microsoft is working on bringing others. It will likely eventually include Muse, which Meta announced last week is coming to Windows sometime in the future.
Getting started with Hermes was mostly a two-click experience in my testing, but I had trouble getting OpenClaw set up properly. The app kept complaining that a local gateway wasn't installed properly and needed to be uninstalled and reinstalled to get everything working perfectly.
I've been using OpenClaw for various tasks over the past week, but more testing is needed to understand the value of this local AI support beyond the obvious tasks like coding. As powerful as the RTX Spark chip is, the large local models are still much slower to respond to requests than the cloud models, so I have a feeling I'll be using it more for things I want to run overnight or leave processing in the background.
Microsoft has also done a lot of work behind the scenes to optimize Nvidia's RTX Spark chips for all the tasks you'd expect to do on a Windows laptop. Unlike Intel or AMD laptops, RTX Spark laptops use Microsoft's Prism emulator for applications that don't have a native Arm version.
Windows emulation on Arm has been a problem for over a decade, but the release of Qualcomm's first Snapdragon X series laptops a few years ago helped RTX Spark laptops now benefit from a variety of Arm-native apps and Microsoft's improved emulator.
However, there are still many changes needed for the new Nvidia chips. "Simulation is not public," says Daoud. Each platform requires adjustment. "Each core is different. How x64 translates to that core needs to be highly optimized, and for RTX Spark we've done a lot to optimize its microarchitecture."
Some of these optimizations are focused on gaming, especially since CPUs often dictate the framerate and smoothness of games, while a GPU does the heavy lifting of game rendering. Microsoft quietly sends Prism updates all the time. "Every month we release an update to improve compatibility," says Daoud. "It's something we're constantly working on on the Windows team."
Microsoft is also focusing on memory optimization for RTX Spark laptops. Microsoft's own Surface Laptop Ultra can come with up to 128GB of integrated memory, making it possible to load large models into the memory. "We've made incredible investments in the integrated memory architecture to allow you to load as much as possible into 128GB," says Daoud. But we also save a bit of space to make sure the system stays responsive and that programs running on top of Windows run well and are responsive.
Microsoft optimized how memory works in RTX Spark, including tuning for power and performance, maximizing battery life, and ensuring a game runs while rendering a video in the background. You can even manually adjust the amount of integrated memory allocated to the GPU with a slider in Nvidia's Windows app.
This slider is useful if you have an RTX Spark laptop with 24GB or 32GB of memory, so you can balance more with the GPU for certain apps and games. While Microsoft and Nvidia maintain that RTX Spark laptops should not be considered gaming machines, they are more than capable of running the latest AAA titles.
"Nvidia and Microsoft have spent a lot of energy in recent months thinking deeply about making sure that RTX Spark can deliver the true form of the RTX gaming experience," said Daoud.
One of the first parts of making sure the RTX Spark supported the game was using anti-cheat vendors with Windows on Arm. Some of this work started with Qualcomm, but has clearly accelerated with Nvidia's involvement.
Fortnite, Marvel Rivals, Arc Raiders, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and many other games that have anti-cheat engines are supported on RTX Spark laptops. Nvidia and Microsoft are also working with a variety of other anti-cheat providers to make more games available in the future.
Activision's anti-cheat engine Ricochet, which is used in Call of Duty, will support RTX Spark in 2027, and EA has committed to having its Javelin anti-cheat running on Battlefield as early as 2027. PUBG will start running on RTX Spark laptops in the first half of 2027, and Riot Games has committed to running League of Legends and Valorant on RTX Spark laptops in the future.
Microsoft is also bringing its advanced shader delivery system to the RTX Spark. This allows the Xbox app to preload game shaders while downloading. It's the same experience found on Xbox One devices, allowing you to download a game, click launch, and automatically precompile the shaders so you don't have to sit there and wait for the game.
I haven't encountered many game compatibility issues during my testing, even though almost every game I've tested is cloned. Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips weren't powerful enough in terms of GPU to make gaming a reality, but Nvidia has packed a much more powerful GPU into the RTX Spark.
Your in-game mileage will vary depending on the title, but for the most part I've found that medium settings, running at 1440p and DLSS performance will get you around 60fps in most games. In some titles you may need to lower the resolution or settings. It's definitely not as good as a gaming laptop, but for something on the same level as a MacBook Pro, it's good enough for gaming on the go.
The latest part of Microsoft's work on RTX Spark involves Windows features. Surprisingly, Copilot Plus PC features like Recall are not available on RTX Spark devices at launch. The reason for their delay is unclear, but it appears that they won't be fully available until next year. "We're working closely with Nvidia to bring Copilot Plus PC experiences to RTX Spark, which is expected to be available to Windows Insiders for the first time later this year," said Adrien Brubaker, Senior Director of Windows Marketing.
Microsoft is also working on a new Windows Search interface that works best on devices like the RTX Spark. The interface is being overhauled to focus on speed and even includes actions that let you do things like turn Bluetooth on or off directly from the search bar. It essentially turns Windows Search into a launcher, a much-needed improvement. "We think you're going to like it," says Daoud. We think it will change the way people interact with Windows."
* Xbox officially welcomes the chaos of AI-powered game ports. Retro gaming is booming right now thanks to compilations and recompilations that allow gamers to port classic titles to new devices or merge code from two different games into one new experience. According to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, Microsoft is committed to this effort with the new Xbox Labs group, which is "a small group of game developers, engineers and scientists whose job it is to turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience." Sharma thinks the experiments we've seen in recent weeks, where Windows PC builds have been translated to run on Apple's silicon or ported to run in browsers, "challenge long-held assumptions about our industry: the link between software and hardware, the boundary between creating and playing, and how people discover and experience games." Part of this seems to be related to the use of artificial intelligence inside the Xbox, as the games on Sharma's notes share many of the same workloads that the AI agents did on the coding side.
* Microsoft has a new machine learning tool to improve weather forecasting. Microsoft claims to have solved old physics-based weather forecasting with machine learning. The company's researchers say they have found a new and cost-effective way to make weather forecasts more accurate two to six weeks in advance. Microsoft has even open-sourced the tool it uses and published its findings in the journal Nature.
* Honey, the xbox shrunk its controller. Microsoft surprised everyone this week with new Xbox hardware. The Xbox Nano controller is the company's smallest controller, designed for younger players, smaller hands, and gaming on the go. At $49.99, it's also more affordable than the regular Xbox controller. It's about five inches long and includes Xbox Wireless and Bluetooth support for connecting to Xbox consoles and phones, tablets, and PCs. The Xbox Nano controller also has a rechargeable battery and does not require AA batteries or a separate charging pack like most Xbox controllers. You can pre-order the Xbox Nano now and it will launch in November
* Microsoft's new AI chip makes it less dependent on Nvidia GPUs. Microsoft introduced the third generation of its Maia artificial intelligence chip this week, and it's no longer all about beating Amazon or Google. This time, Maia 300 improves the cost and efficiency of running AI workloads in the cloud, as well as the ability to handle the latest reasoning models and agent tasks. These improvements will soon make Maia the "premier artificial intelligence system" for Microsoft products and services, making the company less dependent on Nvidia and AMD GPUs.
* Satya Nadella says we should assume all AI models are "compromised". Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella published a lengthy post on X over the weekend expressing his thoughts on the dangers of advanced AI models. Nadella says we can no longer accept a world in which artificial intelligence is treated as "a collection of nested black boxes" whose recommendations and actions we simply accept or reject. He calls for a more transparent system where models can contain, be viewed, and leave behind "tamper-proof human-readable evidence." Nadella's advice is thoughtful and well-balanced, but unfortunately overshadowed by his use of "superintelligence" instead of artificial intelligence. That's what President Donald Trump wants companies to call artificial intelligence, and Microsoft seems to be towing the line.
* Microsoft launched its new artificial intelligence model for quick decision making. Microsoft introduced its new Microsoft-Decision-1 model just a few days after OpenAI, its new decisions API. This model is designed to select the most efficient AI model to perform a task, and Microsoft claims it beats others in tests to determine speed and accuracy.
* Forza Horizon 6 for PS5 has been delayed until January 2027. Last month I reported that the PS5 release of Forza Horizon 6 had been pushed back to early 2027, and now Playground Games has officially confirmed that the game will launch on January 26th. This delay means that the PS5 version will now coincide with a new version for the game. Playground Games is also selling a premium version of Forza Horizon 6 on PS5, offering up to five days of early access before January 26.
* Microsoft and Japan bust a cybercrime network behind more than a billion scam messages. Hopefully you'll see fewer scam messages about parking fines or fake deliveries, as Microsoft says it's helped eliminate a market for fraudsters. Microsoft, along with Japan's National Police Agency, traced the fraudulent activity to a marketplace called YAM Store and some phishing kits that helped scammers send the messages. Microsoft says it has disabled more than 20,000 accounts connected to the YAM Store and blocked more than 100,000 web domains used for impersonation and fraud.
* The Link to Windows app for Android may soon let you remotely shut down your PC. You can already lock your Windows PC through the Link to Windows app, but it looks like you'll soon be able to remotely shut it down as well. The updated beta version has a new power menu with options to lock, sleep, shut down or restart the PC.
* How Gears of War: E-Day solves the Xbox Series S memory problem by hitting the SSD. The Alliance has developed a solution to work around the 10GB memory limit on Microsoft's smaller Xbox Series S console. We've heard many stories over the years about how this memory limitation has sometimes been difficult for developers, and now a custom system designed in collaboration with the Xbox Platform team and Advanced Technology Group has allowed E-Day to use SSDs as a new level of memory. This technique has allowed The Coalition to keep game density high in the S Series instead of reducing quality.
* Microsoft's scientific chief resigns after 16 years. Few people have had as much influence at Microsoft as Peter Lee. The head of Microsoft Science is stepping down for a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join an elite team," which he says is a "huge departure" from what he's done for the past 20 years. Li has always been a key figure in Microsoft research, leading the company's research operations in 14 labs around the world for the past four years. I'm not sure where Microsoft will take Research, but it will certainly leave Microsoft without another talented manager.
I'm always keen to hear from readers, so please leave a comment here, or if you'd like to discuss something else, you can hit me up at @notepad. If you've heard about any of Microsoft's secret projects, you can contact me via email at @notepad or chat with me confidentially on Signal messaging, where I'm tomwarren.01. I'm also on Telegram tomwarren if you prefer to chat there.