The Official ROG Ally Thread (SteamDeck too)

[sugarhigh 519]

I want to see Samsung, Dell, HP and Sony (not Playstation) versions. And Valve has got to go ahead and release the SteamOS iso.

Edited June 15, 2023 by sugarhigh

[Remij 4,720]

1 minute ago, Twinblade said:

 

Jesus, up to 33% is a lot  but ASUS has been good with their updates so far so Im sure they're working on it

I think we're going to see the Ally improve a lot over the course of its life.  There's a ton of potential there.

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

@-GD-X Lies of P seems really good on this thing. I might just permanently play through the game on the Ally once it releases

 

 

[-GD-X★ 7,827]

4 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

@-GD-X Lies of P seems really good on this thing. I might just permanently play through the game on the Ally once it releases

 

 

damn, it looks so crisp!

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

1 hour ago, -GD-X said:

damn, it looks so crisp!

 

Im trying it now and I have no idea if the Ally is just a beast or if the game's amazingly optimized but in the turbo mode im getting upwards of 70 FPS.....on high settings  Even in the standard 15w mode I get 50-60 a lot of the time with the same settings.

[-GD-X★ 7,827]

Just now, Twinblade said:

 

Im trying it now and I have no idea if the Ally is just a beast or if the game's amazingly optimized but in the turbo mode im getting upwards of 70 FPS.....on high settings  Even in the standard 15w mode I get 50-60 a lot of the time with the same settings.

damn, homie. the joycons feel good?

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

1 minute ago, -GD-X said:

damn, homie. the joycons feel good?

 

yeah i've been reading about deadzone issues some people are having but the sticks actually feel very responsive in the games i've tested so far.

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

Just a heads up for anyone who might get this at some point, but I just turned off these 2 Windows 11 services that apparently worsen game performance. Not sure why they're on by default on this thing.

 

https://rogallylife.com/2023/06/15/rog-ally-performance-disabling-services/

[-GD-X★ 7,827]

1 hour ago, Twinblade said:

Just a heads up for anyone who might get this at some point, but I just turned off these 2 Windows 11 services that apparently worsen game performance. Not sure why they're on by default on this thing.

 

https://rogallylife.com/2023/06/15/rog-ally-performance-disabling-services/

Have you noticed any differences with performance, after disabling those? 

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

1 hour ago, -GD-X said:

Have you noticed any differences with performance, after disabling those? 

 
I haven’t tested it yet. But based on the benchmarks I’ve seen for desktop PCs, the FPS improvements can be around 5%-10% on average.  
 

It would be nice if someone properly benchmarked this with the Ally, but there doesn’t seem to be any stuff like that out there yet.

[-GD-X★ 7,827]

49 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 
I haven’t tested it yet. But based on the benchmarks I’ve seen for desktop PCs, the FPS improvements can be around 5%-10% on average.  
 

It would be nice if someone properly benchmarked this with the Ally, but there doesn’t seem to be any stuff like that out there yet.

Weird, since many want the ROG to gain traction…unless they are Steam fanboys! 

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

There's definitely still some issues with the 10w 'silent' mode. I started playing Planet of Lana, which is clearly not a demanding game, but the framerate is constantly dipping into the 20s and 30s. However, when you toggle to the performance mode which only uses 5 more watts the framerate leaps into the 60-100 range.

[-GD-X★ 7,827]

9 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

There's definitely still some issues with the 10w 'silent' mode. I started playing Planet of Lana, which is clearly not a demanding game, but the framerate is constantly dipping into the 20s and 30s. However, when you toggle to the performance mode which only uses 5 more watts the framerate leaps into the 60-100 range.

so, after a few days with it, what score would you give the system? pros/cons?

[sugarhigh 519]

6 hours ago, -GD-X said:

Weird, since many want the ROG to gain traction…unless they are Steam fanboys! 

Any steam fanboy against the Ally is misguided. Ally is a way to play steam games.

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

3 hours ago, -GD-X said:

so, after a few days with it, what score would you give the system? pros/cons?

 

Well, I haven't played any single game seriously for a long enough period of time to really give any in-depth impressions. Bur if I were to break it down so far

 

Performance & build quality - 9/10. There's some niggling issues with how inconsistent firmware updates have been and how they affect performance, but there's no doubt that in general the thing is a beast hardware wise. It feels sturdy in your hands, and the analogs/buttons also feel good and responsive. On top of all that, Im definitely impressed by how quiet and cool it remains even when you're playing a demanding game.

 

Usability - 7/10. This is where it falters a bit. The command center and armory crate work well enough, so once you have things set up within windows its easy to just launch games and customize their settings including the TDP usage, FPS counter, controls, etc.

However getting to that point can be an exercise in frustration. Navigating the Windows UI never feels as good as it should .Sometimes you can use the A button to accept actions and open stuff, while other times it just doesn't work and you have to rely on the touchscreen. You'll also want to grab all the armory crate and windows updates whenever they're available, but that can lead to its own buggy moments. For example yesterday after I installed some updates the system went into a reboot loop where it just randomly rebooted like 6 or 7 times in a row, but didn't give me any feedback on why. Usually Windows will give you a message about that kind of thing, but not in this case. I was starting to think that i'd have to perform some kind of OS reset and set up the entire thing from scratch.

 

Screen - 9/10. I thought I would miss the Ayaneo Air's OLED screen but not after seeing the Ally. This thing is so sharp, with vivid colors and a smoothness that other portable systems don't have (likely due to the 120hz). Eventhough the 3D games look great I've actually been more impressed by Planet of Lana. The hand painted art really pops on this kind of screen, even more so than it did on my monitor. I think 2D handpainted games might be the ones to benefit the most from this system. I just grabbed Guacamelee 2 from EGS so im interested in seeing how that will look.

 

Battery Life - 7.5/10. Its too early to really get a full grasp of this, but its definitely not ideal. I remember 30 minutes of BF2042 using up around 30% of battery life in the turbo mode, so that might be an idea of what you can expect from really demanding triple A games. Im going to be playing more Planet of Lana in the 15w mode, so I expect the battery to last quite a bit longer there.

 

That averages out to a 8.1/10 so I guess thats my rating so far  

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

So if you really hate Windows you can just replace it with a Linux distribution like ChimeraOS and basically turn the Ally into a (more powerful) Steam Deck

 

 

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

Cyberpunk w/FSR set to quality runs at 30-40 FPS on a mix of medium/high settings 

 

 

 

[-GD-X★ 7,827]

29 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

Cyberpunk w/FSR set to quality runs at 30-40 FPS on a mix of medium/high settings 

 

 

 

That’s fucking crazy! 

[Twinblade★ 3,992]

41 minutes ago, -GD-X said:

That’s fucking crazy! 

 

That was one of the more dense parts of the city too. I was getting up to 50FPS indoors

 

[Remij 4,720]

Gawd damn, that's crazy impressive