Obviously the new Windows tablet generation, beginning with the Surface Pro 11 but also involving other brands like Lenovo etc. offers convenient CPU power, which could make running Cubase on a Windows tablet like the Surface (as I do with my Surface Pro 8) even more attractive.
Since I don’t know how much effort would be required for Cubase, I ask if there is any chance that Steinberg might support Snapdragon tablets, while they become a really valid and powerful alternative to Apple Silicon?
Does anyone know of these will run cubase ?
.thanks in advance
I am wondering about this too. Can anyone from Steinberg provide an answer?
This seems really unlikely to me unless Snapdragon-based laptops become very common. It’s not like they have the reach of Apple where every DAW maker jumps to whatever changes they want to make. It might run in x86 emulated mode but that never sounds like a high-performance idea. And then of course there’s the whole ASIO driver thing for audio interfaces… If someone can send me a Pro 11, I’ll check it out 
Microsoft have pushed for ARM CPU’s for more than a decade. Their tool-chain is mature. It should not be that complicated for anyone in the business to get there. However they are many and if only a few of them fail the whole system fail, and for DAW’s there are many small nice plugins that will never get updated. And that is also true for Mac. I have some Izotope and Lexicon plugins that is very unlikely to get to ARM. (MS, Apple nor Linux) But Steinberg will drop VST2 soon so many will be killed with that.
I just purchased the Surface Pro 11 Copilot + PC with the Snapdragon X Elite processor. This is a very preliminary look but I can tell you the experience is totally different from ARM on Windows in the past. I won’t lie, I did run into a few snags, but for the most part the experience of using Cubase on the Snapdragon X is a positive one. I will say the built in Steinberg ASIO drivers did not work for me. My FocusRite Scarlet 18x18 drivers as well as ASIO4ALL, seemed to work perfectly. So far I have not had any audio dropouts, but again, i really have not done any extensive testing. Considering, all the Windows OEM builds are going to be releasing some form of Snapdragon X processors, so I think there will be widespread adoption at a miniumum for making the x64 emulation as seemless as possible. This is all just to say, I think the people who are judging the performance of the Snapdragon X based on prior efforts of ARM on Windows are very premature in their assessments.
I successfully installed Cubase 13 Pro on my Surface Laptop 7 (Snapdragon X Elite) and the Steinberg built-in ASIO driver is working as well. However, latency is not great, which can be reduced a bit when disabling the audio input port. Then it goes as low as Input latency 10ms / Output latency 20ms. It works ok for playback, but playing a VST via MIDI keyboard has a noticable delay.
I also tried getting a Steinberg UR22C audio interface to work, but TOOLS for UR-C V3.0.0 won’t even install and the device manager lists it with the yellow exclamation mark and no driver. I’m wondering how the previous poster was able to get their Focusrite running. Do they have ARM drivers already?
Some VSTs installed and are working fine, such as Arturia’'s and Roland Cloud Manager, others failed installing like Avenger, Nexus.
I guess it’s still early days and I hope Steinberg will provide ARM drivers for their audio interfaces asap.
Can you give us an idea of the performance?
I’m interested in this, too.
Are they silent, for example, like the Macbooks? I’d be willing to sacrifice a little performance if they are.
Performance outside of Cubase is great. It’s definitely faster and snappier compared to my previous Surface Book 3 with an i7 and 16GB of RAM when running standard software like O365 and MS Edge. Fans never come on when browsing the internet or watching YouTube, so it’s silent. It doesn’t get warm or hot either.
This of course changed when running Cubase 13 Pro with one of the provided demo projects. I opened “Demo Project by Austin Hull (C13)”, which is included in Cubase, and played it with Windows 11 Power Mode set to 1) Energy Saver, 2) Recommended and 3) Best Performance. The Steinberg built-in ASIO driver was selected as the output Audio Device playing through the laptop’s speakers. The project plays without stuttering in all 3 Power Modes, but the laptop does get warm (not hot!) and the fans come on, although they are still fairly quiet. The only way to tell a difference in performance is by looking at the graph for ASIO-Guard. As expected, it’s the highest when the Energy Saver is ON and peaks around 75-85%. At Best Performance ASIO-Guard peaks around 40-50%.
Here are screenshots of the Audio Performance window for each Power Mode:
Power Mode = Energy Saver ON
Power Mode = Recommended
Power Mode = Best Performance
Again, this is far from a scientific benchmark test, but hopefully gives you a rough idea. Without any Audio Interface drivers, you’re limited to the laptop’s built-in speakers and Steinberg’s built-in ASIO driver for now. For sketching out ideas with a limited track count and a handful of VSTs, Cubase works fine. But if your goal is to regularly create music with it, a Snapdragon X laptop is no replacement for an Intel-based one just yet.
However, I’m hopeful vendors will make their software and drivers available for Windows on ARM over time and then we’re talking again. The raw performance is there for sure and just waiting to get utilized.
PS: Laptop used → Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition, Snapdragon X Elite (X1E80100), 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
I wonder if the “Audio computer” manufacturers will steer clear of Snapdragon for a while (looking at a new rig in a few months)
