





When I first spoke to Josh Heslop, he painted a picture of the night of Surface Pro 4’s release: he was the first customer in line at the Microsoft Store at Baybrook Mall in Friendswood, TX, eager to get his hands on the new device and see what kind of gaming muscle lay underneath the magnesium case. And it didn’t take him long to find out – after collecting his Surface Pro 4 and swag bag, he headed home and posted his first Surface benchmarking video showing DOTA 2 running smoothly on the same day the device was released.

Since then, Josh has fallen in love with Surface and with the Surface gaming community. After uploading a few more benchmarking videos to his YouTube channel, Josh decided to take his involvement to the next level, becoming an active participant and moderator of the /r/SurfaceGaming subreddit. In the year since that first DOTA 2 video, Josh has posted over 100 additional gaming benchmarking videos on Surface to prove what the devices can do.

Because Josh works his day job as a police officer, he loves being able to treat gaming on his Surface as a fun de-stresser and a way to stay in touch with friends and family. Whether it’s kicking back with his pals in a game of Rocket League at a smooth 50 FPS, or pushing performance to the envelope to see what FPS and resolution he can get out of a AAA title like GTA V, Josh has found his i7 Surface Pro 4 to be a surprisingly capable gaming device across the board.

When we saw how excited he was to benchmark and share his Surface Pro 4 gaming experience with others, we partnered with Josh to have him help us evaluate the gaming performance of the new Surface Book with Performance Base. He’s already started putting the powerful 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M graphics processor through its paces, with 25 popular games benchmarked so far over on his YouTube channel – go check out Josh test graphically intense games like The Witcher 3 and Battlefield 1 right alongside popular competitive multiplayer titles like Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and World of Warcraft.

I caught up with Josh about a few of his favorite gamer-friendly features and tips from both of his Surface devices:

Surfaces are LIGHT! When I’m gaming on the go, it’s easy to pick up a Surface and bring it along with me. Whether I’m fitting in a game on my lunch break or my wife and kids have taken over my desktop gaming PC at home and I want to play from the bedroom, I love being able to whip out my Surface and pick up right where I left off. Having a USB port for a mouse or Xbox One controller can really come in handy on both the Surface Pro 4 and Book. Surface has options and customization to fit whatever type of gamer you might be. When I bought my Surface Pro 4, I wanted a super mobile device to run a few popular titles but was okay making some compromises on settings and resolution. If you want to play more games including some AAAs or want a full laptop to sit down with, Surface Book with Performance Base might be a better fit. There are always ways to make your own gaming experience better. The Surface Book with Performance Base has a super high 3000 x 2000 native resolution, which looks amazing but can affect performance for graphically intense games. I use a custom resolution of ~1500 x 1000 in many titles so both the picture and play experience are great, and have optimized my power settings to help get that extra ounce of performance out of the dGPU. Check out my YouTube video for a few tips on optimizing your Surface device for gaming.

Thanks again to Josh for his dedication to building out these resources for the Surface gaming community. And this is just the tip of the iceberg – with amazing built-in features like the Game Bar, gaming on Windows 10 is a natural and seamless experience. Check out a few cool tips on how to easily use the Game Bar to record and share your gameplay, or head over to Surface.com if you want to learn more about Surface and what our devices can do!