GPT-6 Astra helps run four Windows games locally on an iPad mini

Why it matters

Reshi's demo moves frontier-model coding beyond generated browser apps. A reproducible Windows compatibility stack for iPadOS could open years of existing software without source-level ports.

Ammaar Reshi (@ammaar) used OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra to get four Windows PC games running locally on an iPad mini, according to a September 7th thread on X. His video showed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City, Hades and Age of Empires II running with on-screen touch controls.

https://x.com/ammaar/status/2097100854729834636

Reshi said the games were their Windows versions, rather than native iPad releases, and that gameplay was running on the tablet without streaming from another machine. He reported frame rates above 100 frames per second for Hades and 60 for Age of Empires II. Those figures are Reshi's measurements, and he did not identify the graphics settings, resolution, precise editions of the games or iPad mini generation used in the test.

The demonstration landed four days after OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra on September 3rd. OpenAI describes Astra as its strongest model for software engineering and computer use, including installing, testing and troubleshooting software. The model supports a hosted shell, code execution, patching and computer-control tools through OpenAI's Responses API, with standard API pricing of $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens.

Reshi's experiment gives Astra a more concrete test than the browser games that typically follow a frontier-model release. Running existing Windows game binaries on iPadOS can require several layers of compatibility work: translating processor instructions, reproducing Windows APIs, converting DirectX graphics calls into something Apple's hardware can render, and mapping keyboard, mouse or controller input onto a touchscreen.

The thread does not establish how much of that stack Astra created, modified or configured. Reshi said he used Astra "to get" the games running, without separating model-written code from existing compatibility software or his own engineering and debugging. He said he plans to publish a repository and setup guides. Until that code is available, the result remains a creator demonstration rather than a reproducible release.

A Google designer testing the rival model

Reshi is an unusually well-positioned tester. According to his personal site, he leads product and design for Google AI Studio, Gemini's developer platform, at Google DeepMind. He previously led design at ElevenLabs and held product and design roles at Brex and Palantir.

Asked in the thread about his choice of model, Reshi replied that he uses "Gemini daily + everything else." The answer reflects how practitioners increasingly select coding agents by task rather than employer allegiance, especially during the first days after a new frontier model ships.

Reshi has also spent much of 2026 using coding models for game preservation and porting projects. His SkyRoads project uses an earlier Codex model to reverse-engineer the original DOS game and rebuild its systems in Rust. The repository documents parsers, executable tracing tools, a native renderer and a playable build, while explicitly identifying the parts that remain incomplete.

His larger Command & Conquer: Generals project brought the 2003 game's engine to macOS, iPhone and iPad using source code released under the GPL. That port compiles the engine for ARM64 and translates its DirectX 8 rendering through DXVK, Vulkan, MoltenVK and Metal. Reshi also added touch controls designed around real-time strategy conventions such as drag selection, camera panning and pinch-to-zoom.

The new Astra demo tackles a different target. Reshi specifically presented the four games as Windows builds running locally, which would avoid the need to obtain and recompile each title's source code. That distinction could make the eventual tooling useful across a broader catalog, depending on its hardware requirements, compatibility limits and installation process.

The choice of games suggests Reshi tested several generations and engine profiles rather than one carefully selected executable. Skyrim and Arkham City date to the DirectX 9 and 11 era, Hades is a newer action game, and Age of Empires II represents a mouse-heavy strategy workload that requires a different touch interface. The demo shows all four launching and responding to input. It does not yet show longer sessions, thermal behavior, save support or repeatable installation.

Those details will determine whether this becomes a practical compatibility project or remains a strong model-launch experiment. The immediate result is narrower and still consequential: less than a week after Astra's release, a product designer with a history of shipping AI-assisted ports used it to cross one of consumer software's more stubborn platform boundaries, then played Skyrim on an iPad mini.