Qualcomm could be planning to supercharge PC game emulation on Android

Published Sep 25, 2026, 9:48 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Sign in to your XDA account Summary Qualcomm unveiled Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Elite Extreme Gen 6 at Snapdragon Summit 2026. Qualcomm may add DirectX 12 to Snapdragon chips; a demo on an engineering phone hit roughly 30fps. Official DirectX 12 would boost PC-game emulation and compatibility, but Qualcomm hasn't confirmed anything yet. At the Snapdragon Summit 2026, Qualcomm announced its powerful new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. While the pair of mobile chips feature impressive specs, like a 2 + 6 Oryon CPU layout with 2 Prime cores clocked at 5GHz and 6 Performance cores at 4GHz, they still can't easily run PC games that require DirectX 12 support. However, new rumors suggest that could soon change. Qualcomm is reportedly considering bringing DirectX 12 support to future Snapdragon mobile chips or possibly even the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series, allowing users to more easily emulate games that support Microsoft's graphics and multimedia API for Windows 11 and Xbox. While the company hasn't made an official statement regarding DirectX 12 support for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series or a future chip, China-based YouTuber Geekerwan tested the still-unannounced DirectX 12 feature on a Qualcomm engineering reference smartphone equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, with games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong (via GSMArena). In Geekerwan's tests (check the video out below), both high-end PC games averaged just over 30fps. Qualcomm provided travel and lodging for Snapdragon Summit 2026. The company had no input in this article, and did not see it before publishing. Official DirectX 12 support will likely improve PC game compatibility and performance It's unclear what Qualcomm's official plans are Playing PC games on Android is already possible with emulators like Turnip, which require you to download unofficial GPU drivers, and with apps like Winlator or GameHub, which run Windows/x86 PC games on Android using Wine and additional translation layers. In theory, Qualcomm adding official DirectX 12 support to its Snapdragon chips would make it easier to emulate PC games on Android and also improve overall compatibility and performance. During my time this week at the Snapdragon Summit 2026, I unfortunately didn't hear any mention of DirectX 12 officially coming to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series. During a media Q&A, Qualcomm offered a somewhat indirect answer when asked. That said, the chipmaker seems to be considering official DirectX 12 support if Geekerwan's claims are accurate. At the Snapdragon Summit 2026 keynote, Qualcomm said the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series features AI-dedicated Adreno matrix cores that power features like AI super resolution and frame generation through Adreno Neural Fusion. The chipmaker also mentioned a few specific mobile games that support these features, including Diablo Immortal, War Thunder Mobile, and Farming Simulator 26.