The Official ROG Ally Thread (SteamDeck too)

[-GD-X★ 7,808]

2 hours ago, Twinblade said:

Best Buy has open box Allys in 'Excellent' condition for $616, for anyone interested

 

ASUS ROG Ally 7" 120Hz FHD 1080p Gaming Handheld AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor 512GB White RC71L-ALLY.Z1X_512 - Best Buy

Damn, that’s a great price! I should test it out at Best Buy.  Maybe the 120hz screen will be easier on my eyes. 

[jehurey 3,298]

3 hours ago, Twinblade said:

Best Buy has open box Allys in 'Excellent' condition for $616, for anyone interested

 

ASUS ROG Ally 7" 120Hz FHD 1080p Gaming Handheld AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor 512GB White RC71L-ALLY.Z1X_512 - Best Buy

they also announced the Valve handheld also selling refurbished, at the same time.

 

Apparently they have enough used stock to sell them either directly online, and also through Gamestop.

 

 

 

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

^ valve is so desperate lmao.

[Remij 4,712]

3 hours ago, Twinblade said:

^ valve is so desperate lmao.

 

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

Some nice quality of life improvements in the latest Ally update

 

https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/changelogs/changelog-august-8-2023-rog-ally/ba-p/948908#:~:text=This update contains “Hold to,concerns are still being investigated.

 

I like the expanded VRAM options in particular. I just set mine to 6gb, I think that strikes a good balance between 4 (which is too little) and 8 (which is too much and only leaves 8gb of general system memory).

[-GD-X★ 7,808]

15 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

Some nice quality of life improvements in the latest Ally update

 

https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/changelogs/changelog-august-8-2023-rog-ally/ba-p/948908#:~:text=This update contains “Hold to,concerns are still being investigated.

 

I like the expanded VRAM options in particular. I just set mine to 6gb, I think that strikes a good balance between 4 (which is too little) and 8 (which is too much and only leaves 8gb of general system memory).

6 makes it around a 3060m, correct? 

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

1 hour ago, -GD-X said:

6 makes it around a 3060m, correct? 

 

Im not really sure the comparison would work. In general you don't need  a ton of VRAM on these kind of systems since you're only running games at 720p/1080p. However it does seem to make a sizable difference in some

 

 

A nearly 10fps gain in Forza Horizon 5 is significant

 

Im hoping these channels will now make 6gb comparisons since thats one of the new options added.

 

edit:

 

I guess I've been out of the loop because the expanded options have already been benchmarked.

 

The results are quite interesting....and make me think there's some optimization to be done

 

 

Cyberpunk in particular is a odd case. Raising the usage from 4gb to 6gb lowers performance, but raising it from 6gb to 8gb increases it again.

 

Either way it seems that leaving the setting on auto is guaranteed to lower performance across the board....so rule of thumb is to always choose a value. It seems most games will see improvements if you just set it to 8gb so that might still be the best setting.

[Remij 4,712]

46 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 

Im not really sure the comparison would work. In general you don't need  a ton of VRAM on these kind of systems since you're only running games at 720p/1080p. However it does seem to make a sizable difference in some

 

 

A nearly 10fps gain in Forza Horizon 5 is significant

 

Im hoping these channels will now make 6gb comparisons since thats one of the new options added.

 

edit:

 

I guess I've been out of the loop because the expanded options have already been benchmarked.

 

The results are quite interesting....and make me think there's some optimization to be done

 

 

Cyberpunk in particular is a odd case. Raising the usage from 4gb to 6gb lowers performance, but raising it from 6gb to 8gb increases it again.

 

Either way it seems that leaving the setting on auto is guaranteed to lower performance across the board....so rule of thumb is to always choose a value. It seems most games will see improvements if you just set it to 8gb so that might still be the best setting.

 

I'd say those 1% and .1% lows are within margin of error territory.  From that shot there's no reason to choose more than 5GBs.  The amount of games consuming more than 5GB of VRAM at 1080p medium settings is probably very very very small.

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

Man there's still a lot of tweaking you can do with this thing to improve battery life, performance, and even in-game visuals

 

 

 

 

Gonna replace RSR with RIS as well as disable CPU Boost to start

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

Looks like 900p might be the best resolution to game at on this. Almost an unnoticeable loss in quality compared to 1080p but the performance gains can be sizeable

 

 

[-GD-X★ 7,808]

13 hours ago, Twinblade said:

Looks like 900p might be the best resolution to game at on this. Almost an unnoticeable loss in quality compared to 1080p but the performance gains can be sizeable

 

 

Have you tried BG3 on it? What has been the most surprising game to look/run well on it?

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

8 minutes ago, -GD-X said:

Have you tried BG3 on it? What has been the most surprising game to look/run well on it?

 

Im not gonna bother with BG3 because its the type of game with a lot of small UI/HUD elements that im sure would bother my eyes too much.

 

Of what i've tried so far I definitely think Cyberpunk was the best showcase. But I think im gonna give Metro Exodus a try soon because it might actually be even more impressive than Cyberpunk based on the footage i've seen. These visuals at 1080p and over 60FPS in the open world is just insane

 

 

[Remij 4,712]

5 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 

Im not gonna bother with BG3 because its the type of game with a lot of small UI/HUD elements that im sure would bother my eyes too much.

 

Of what i've tried so far I definitely think Cyberpunk was the best showcase. But I think im gonna give Metro Exodus a try soon because it might actually be even more impressive than Cyberpunk based on the footage i've seen. These visuals at 1080p and over 60FPS in the open world is just insane

 

 

No it isn't.. when you play on the ROG it should detect it as a controller and switch the game to the console UI...  At least that's how it is on my Steam Deck.

 

But yes, there's a lot of show stoppers IMO.

 

Cyberpunk

RE4 Remake (Really all the REengine RE games)

Ratchet and Clank

Control

Doom Eternal

GoW

Elden Ring

FH5

Ryse (game still looks incredible)

Red Dead Redemption 2

Days Gone

 

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

42 minutes ago, Remij said:

No it isn't.. when you play on the ROG it should detect it as a controller and switch the game to the console UI...  At least that's how it is on my Steam Deck.

 

But yes, there's a lot of show stoppers IMO.

 

Cyberpunk

RE4 Remake (Really all the REengine RE games)

Ratchet and Clank

Control

Doom Eternal

GoW

Elden Ring

FH5

Ryse (game still looks incredible)

Red Dead Redemption 2

Days Gone

 

 

And? The console UI doesn't scale properly either. Its similar to D4 which was not a great experience at all on these handhelds. RPGs with lots of text and HUD elements just don't work well on a 7 inch screen.

[Remij 4,712]

56 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 

And? The console UI doesn't scale properly either. Its similar to D4 which was not a great experience at all on these handhelds. RPGs with lots of text and HUD elements just don't work well on a 7 inch screen.

Sure it does.  You can LITERALLY adjust the size of menu, character dialog, and in world text in the game...

 

But I'm not saying you have to agree with me.. if you don't think so.. you don't think so.  But it's not like you're looking at a tiny made for monitor hud... it's made to scale properly.

[Remij 4,712]

Some Deck screenshots of BG3.  Game is being downsampled from 900p to 720p.

 

Comparison of the text size smallest to largest

 

 

 

 

UI scale  Doesn't seem bad to me, but I guess everyone has their opinion.

 

Typical view while roaming

[JonDnD 2,696]

Playing Godlurs Gate on handhelds 🥴

[Remij 4,712]

3 minutes ago, JonDnD said:

Playing Godlurs Gate on handhelds 🥴

 

Bedler's Gate

 

 

Will be interesting to see the performance of Act 3 on it.. I'm betting things go to shit pretty quickly  

 

[Twinblade★ 3,983]

24 minutes ago, Remij said:

Some Deck screenshots of BG3.  Game is being downsampled from 900p to 720p.

 

Comparison of the text size smallest to largest

 

 

 

 

UI scale  Doesn't seem bad to me, but I guess everyone has their opinion.

 

Typical view while roaming

 

How does that prove anything? 7 inches is much smaller than the size of those screenshots.

[Remij 4,712]

11 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 

How does that prove anything? 7 inches is much smaller than the size of those screenshots.

You can easily zoom those images down to the rough irl size of the screen on your monitor.  If you can't see that stuff.. you're blind as a bat.  I mean there's text on your phone that's much smaller than any of that shit and you probably don't complain about it.