Surface 2 Pro w/ Windows 8.1 Pro

Has anyone else out there tried to run PA on this device? I recently purchased teh 256GB/8GBRAM version and I can't get it to launch. Game works perfectly on my m17xR3 Alienware of course, but I really want to be able to play this "on the go" on my new tablet.

I can get through the main screen, through the log in process, selecting a game (ai vs you in this case) but then the main "pick a location inside one of the green zones" part just is just a black screen. Nothing on the screen to select if I just randomly pick something .. sometimes I can get it to popup the planets but ususally it just says "PA.exe has stopped responding, close/wait for respond" etc

I think you need open Intel website and download/install latest drivers for Intel HD4400:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=23323

Most likely this device you just bought were produced 2-5 months ago and it's obviously have 5-6 months old drivers.

Yeah I tried that, but it says "The driver being installed is not validated for this computer. Please obtain the appropriate driver from the computer manufacturer. Setup will now exit"

Here is the current driver version that Intel says its "up to date"

It's still outdated. As you see your is 3262 and latest one is 3316.

It's mean Microsoft locked driver update for your device. Usually you can bypass this checking using instuction:
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-033916.htm
In 99% of cases it's not affect anything, but Microsoft it's only manufacturer who might have customized hardware, so in this case it's might be a problem. Anyway you can always back to "old and outdated" drivers easily.

Ok I forced the driver update, still black intro.. but if I justclick around.. right click drag etc etc I can get the planets to pop up. It takes about 3 minutes for all the textures to load and I get like 4fps

So am I guessing PA is only going to work for high end GPUs? My m17xR3 does fine (580m) but games like SC2 and D3 run on low settings just fine on the Surface 2 Pro I had hoped PA could as well.

You doing it wrong. While you in lobby you should wait before red circle indicator (in upper right corner of screen) turn green and only then run game. Then it's will start immediately without any glitches.

Set "resolution scaling" to -2. If you run it from Steam disable Steam Overlay.

You should get better than 4fps, but I'm have laptop with Intel HD3000 and it's give me 12-25FPS on start and 5-10FPS in late game. Not tested 56310 on it yet, but don't think it's goes worse.

Amazingly enough that works, if I wait until I get a green sphere AND turn the res scaling all the way down it is some what playable but at like 12-15fps which is not really that great.

PA team are there any plans to support these lower ends cards for a 25-35fps type play or should I stick with the beefier GPUs?

Making sure your settings are set to low will help, and we definitely want to make sure the game runs on as wide a range of hardware as possible. In the mean time,

That's a great quote OK I am standing by, can't wait until this runs on my surface 2 pro. Nothing like ,mobile planet destruction

When alpha test just started neutrino mentioned HD4000 as minimal requirements for PA. So I think at least there was goal to make 30FPS on it.

Also you might want to ask maxpowerz about his tricks to improve FPS. He also playing on tablet with Intel HD.
Actually if you install "slowbars" mod and disable some shaders you should get a higher FPS right now.

Well I think supporting at least a good 25fps on the HD4400 would be a good goal on low settings. I know there aren't many of us out there on these lower end gpus but as a full alpha member and big supporter of this project I can only hope that my dreams of full "mobile awesome" can be realized by the PA team!!!