Diablo 4 resolution issue was actually an easy fix. It was set to window border mode out of the box and then changed it from that to full screen mode then the game allowed me to change the resolution.
To be honest, I don't understand the title. These are not problems, but configuration and tips and tricks that can also be used on a normal gaming Asus PC. The ROG Ally is a PC and not a console. Everyone who has bought it or wants to buy it should be aware of this!
Resolution was already added to my command center by default when I powered on my ROG Ally the first time. It also had frame rate control on the command center by default as well. Asus probably made those changes before they shipped the retail version of the ROG Ally based on feedback from testers and reviewers. The game profile was super useful changing button mapping outside of game settings and not having to rely on Steam controller settings and profiles is super useful thanks for sharing that. The one piece of advice that I would give to new ASUS ROG Ally owners is in the command center there is a Control Mode button I would leave this on auto unless a game you're playing doesn't recognize the rog ally as a controller. If that happens with a game you're playing then switch this to Gamepad mode which forces a controller profile instead of a typical mouse and keyboard layout. Also if you switch the button back to auto or desktop when you go to use Windows the joystick on the right hand side will move your mouse around your desktop and pressing the joystick button acts as your left click and hitting the right trigger button as your right click.
Regarding battery packs: Those were all good recommendations. I’m personally using the Anker 737. It does up to 140 W output and can actually charge the Ally in the full 30W turbo mode (not just the 25). It’s great
How many full charges can you charge the Ally? Can it at least charge it twice? That would add at least 2 more hours of gaming lol. I'm thinking of buying one.
Completely agree. I don't hate the Alley at all, but for me it's just too expensive for a hand-held that I use casually next to my more powerful PC that I use for demanding titles. The Steam Deck (I bought the 64Gb version and upgraded it with a bigger SSD) is just more fitting for me. Both financial and performance-wise...
For anyone who is trying to add already existing games from an SD card to steam and it is stuck in a loop of verifying files, run steam as an administrator and that should fix it.
Great content. Steam Deck and ROG Ally, both have different usage. Steam Deck for Indies (more battery time), ROG Ally for AAA titles (more muscle power).
Deck can play aaa too. I'd say the biggest difference in use case is if you play online multi-player games a lot. Even then that's only assuming you don't install windows on deck
Yeah, I see this device for people who are high end gamers, those with a lot of disposable income, and those that prefer the Windows environment over Steam OS. As you say, I use my Steam Deck for mostly indies and older AA and AAA titles. Not interested in the ROG Ally, but glad other people have the choice.
The Ally is the next step in some ways and for me it’s been equal parts great and nightmare but when it works it seems like the next generation from the deck. It has a lot of things to be ironed out but I think if they can manage that and include stuff like auto TDP, it will be on par with where the SteamDeck is now. I can’t help but imagine how great the Ally might be if Valve made it and right now the Ally serves as a reminder of how great the Deck is currently but I think the Ally is what the market needed and so supporting it is reasonable to me for now.
I LOVE this device. The Steam Deck and the Ally will coexist in my household and will have different functions. Right now, the Deck is going to be my indie and retro mouse and keyboard PC gaming device. The trackpads do great with those. The Ally is now my emulation and AAA device. God of War III AND MGS 4 run beautifully. I can hardly believe I’m running those particular PS3 games on a handheld. Windows has its problems but emulation ease of setup and options isn’t one of them. Retrobat and Launchbox here I come. I also nixxed the armory crate software for now. Playnite has been a surprisingly great substitute.
trackpads are amazing for circular motions in fighting games too. and also when combined with gyro in shooters... esp, if you remove vertical aiming from the trackpad and use gyro for that. it's actually incredibly good.
In Diablo 4's case (And most other modern games), you can make the game render below 1080p while having the HUD at 1080p within the game settings Look for things like "Super Resolution" or "Dynamic Resolution" in games then set the settings as "Performance" and/or change the resolution percentage to any value of 1080p For example I've set my Diablo 4 (1080p) at "Performance" in Super Resolution and I'm getting ~70fps with 15w mode while having the 1080p HUD still
@@mechanicalmonk2020You must be running the newest BIOS (3.19). It's known that there is a problem with 3.19 (vs 3.17) that causes many games to run with ~33% less performance, including diablo 4
Same here. I was watching that part thinking the same thing. Just gotta use that FSR! I’m probably closer to 60s on 15W only pushing to 70s/80s using turbo mode. BUt still, much easier than system changing the resolution. Just use FSR!
The issue with losing 35W option when plugging in another USB device is a bug that Asus has aknowldged they are fixing, It's not that your little GB pocket(or whatever) is drawing more than 70W.
Oh, I’m aware that the Retroid pocket flip isn’t drawing 70 wants. But when you plug multiple things into the 140 W charger, the amount of power that goes to each USB slot changes. This is independent of the fact that there’s some kind of bug that you’re mentioning, but that’s really good information so thank you.
Diablo 4 is only Windows full screen mode so you cant change resolution in game. There is no exclusive full screen option. That is not a Ally issue as it's the same on my desktop and laptop.
So basically you have no idea what the Ally is like and you prefer a child's toy like the steam deck because you saw some videos and only focused on the few unimportant negatives, ignoring all the rest that make it way better than the steam deck.
I have had zero issues with my ally. A lot of these returns are to best buys as someone can return a product as much as they can within a certain time. Also they have display units , people just see games running on it and buy it. Then when they get one home and turn it on they are greater to windows. Have no idea what they doing and delete or screwup the setting then nothing works they declare it as defective and return it. People hoping for a console experience will never happen until Microsoft release a gaming specific os for pc along the lines of Xbox os. But they are so far behind on pc just look at Xbox gamebar it’s shocking bad. They could have a gamebar that opens up like Xbox dashboard with all your games and setting. I have put my ally through hell installed multiple os inc steam os used cloud recovery about 10 times now. Any issues I have had are of my own making but I love it. People’s expectations of a slim handheld pc need to be tempered. I mean being able to play cyberpunk at 70fps in my bed is amazing. The experience will get better, but to really shine this is not asus problem but Microsoft’s.
Ya man, i totally understand what you're saying, the difference between Steam Deck and ROG Ally is that the Deck is handheld console, while the Ally is portable gaming PC, you can tinker around with Windows more and in easier and familiar fashion than Deck, meanwhile keeping the decent performance on games.
Dead zone fix!!! The sticks needs to be calibrated in windows! Windows see’s the Ally sticks as a 360 game pad, these need to be calibrated, make sure Ally is in Game pad mode and use a mouse to run through the process! In Search type “set up usb game controller”, properties…flow instructions
I just picked up one of these, and I find your video very helpful. Thank you I really appreciate it. Was wondering why my SD Card wasn't showing up. Also, the fingerprint redo tip is great! Hello... 😊 I am also going to be playing Streetfighter 6 on it. So glad to here it is running well. Well, just wanted to say Thank you very much! I Appreciate you.
I could metaphorically kiss you bill .Such an easy fix with the SD card as opposed to others . Followed you on stadia , Steam deck and saw this . Thank you ,much appreciated with this fix
I like that green charger too. I have a 200 watt charger from them. But when you talk about points of failure and the cord. What about the foldable plug. That’s the first thing that will fail. And I think way before the cord on the factory charger
bro i just stream AAA's from pc to my deck -- 60fps in everything, 4-5hours battery, trackpads, gyro, and no storage use on deck. if you got a decent pc -- buy a gaming router, and you are set.
Then why buy a steam deck if you're just gonna use it like a Logitech q, I've played about 30 hours of diablo on my ally and it gets 70 fps on 15w in 720. The ally is the future old man
For moving the real time monitor. If you are in 'Auto' you can move it, then immediately go back to playing without having to switch control modes back and forth.
This is a very useful and descriptive intro, thanks for sharing, I have had a left and trigger issue as they are not being responsive, hope I could resolve this by changing the sensitivity, thanks!
Here’s a tip that works great for me. I remapped M1 and down to “close program”. This is important so you can quickly and easily kill a game/program to save battery.
I wonder if you can help me out with an ROG Ally problem I'm having. I've been doing everything docked lately (which I do with my JSAUX dock and a 100W USB-C charger which is needed for full turbo due to the power consumption by the dock) which has been good in most aspects. I use a small Logitech wireless keyboard which has a trackpad and it's so much easier to do things. I've been setting up lots of emulators in LaunchBox and installed/played a few games. However, the problems come from the fact I don't have easy access to certain hardware buttons on the ROG Ally while docked. Specifically, those four white buttons used for Armoury Crate and the Command Centre. (Or whatever it's called.) While it's great that Armoury Crate has mapping options for the ROG Ally, unfortunately that mapping functionality does not extend to controllers. I can't find any good way to map to a controller. No keyboard shortcuts I know of for certain things. My 8BitDo Ultimate controller has two paddles. What if I wanted to map those to Armoury Crate and the Command Centre so I can make some quick config changes in-game, like changing the operating mode to turbo? Or what if I wanted to map the four paddles on my Xbox Elite to correspond to those four white buttons? I don't know any way to do that. It's a shame and apparently a huge oversight on Asus' part. If there aren't some shotcuts I've somehow missed that I could map to my controllers, I hope that Asus will add this in a future update. It's ridiculous that you don't have quick access to these vital functions from a controller. You can't just pull out your keyboard and alt-tab out of a game to go to Armoury Crate without there being a small risk of a game crash in Windows.
Hey man, I love your videos, continue like this. Wanted to ask you, do you have a burn out in the center-right upper side. There is some light blowing, can you notice it?
if you figure out how to turn off the macro buttons on the back of the device, please include that in a future video. i’ve gone into armory crate and set them to unassigned status for game mode and desktop mode, but i will still trigger the projection mode macro while playing and windows pop up mid-game. it’s just the worst…
hold one of the back button and push down on the d-pad brings up task manager. hold one of the back button again and press up on the d-pad invokes the keyboard.
Thanks for the awesome video! The only problem I'm having with my ASUS ROG Ally is that it will not play Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga at all by my SD 512MB plays the game just fine!!! I've deleted the lego game from cloud saves, deleted the games from both devices. I then reinstalled Steam on the ASUS, and installed Lego back and it still will not play. Very slow loading that never gets to function. All my other AAA titles are blazing fast. I'll keep troubleshooting. My Asus has all the current updates.
Hi! Thank you for great video!!! (as usual 😊) As far as I understood that bottleneck of Rog Ally is battery life. Is any way to fix it or it’s only on dev side?
Everyone has the steam deck vs rog ally debate, I am a PC gamer and appreciate both, but for me I have a gaming PC but its big and bulky and hard to move around. Sometimes i want to lay in bed in a different room and play some pc games with my partner, and every friday i visit family and would love to bring a gaming handheld with me. For me, its always near power and battery / windows doesnt annoy me as ive used previous GPD window devices, i am just waiting on my tax return to get the rog ally!
First of all great video. Loving the content. I do have a question about the power supply. Is it safe to use an higher wattage power supply on this device? I would think it would be too much power going to the device and may cause it to burn out faster.
it's okay, because modern chargers have Auto id, it identifies how much power your device needs, example - the Ally maximum power input is 65 watts, the charger will only give 65 watts to Ally even though the charger is a 100 watts charger..
You forget to say that the Ally has extra power limit after fully charged with attached cable. After this, turbo mode goes up to 45W and You have the best possible performance. You should say also about hybrid memory that you can assign between RAM and VRAM depends on your needs. This option is available under settings tab in armoury crate app. It's a great piece of technology, actually you can have in your hands a device with cpu performance similar to i9-10900K, that's awesome! But also has many 'childhood problems' and in my opinion, this gadget must be under power cord all the time otherwise is useless... 50-1h on the battery with locked 30W is a joke. In many AAA titles 1h it's a one quest/task, a few races - without bigger battery or fast charging is very problematic thing.
Regarding the use of Dock Station on it, have you done any setup on W11 in order to work or just connect the ROG Ally into the Dock? Mine dock works with Steam Deck but with ROG Ally dont. Thanks!
Did you ever have the problem that the controls are not being recognized by the game? I have that for example for League of Legends or Black Desert. Do I need to set something up extra?
Hello just figured out was wondering if you could cover it. You can use rewasd for PSRemote Play without a controller. If you have the official Rog Ally dock it bypasses the controller.
Just wanted to pipe in about the uGreen wall chargers. I bought the 100w charger upon your recommendation because i do alot of travel for work and was tired of having four different blocks around. The ugreen eliminated those other blocjs but has created a new problem. Its so heavy that when you end up using hotel power that has very used wall connections the block will just slide out of the wall sometimes. This is by no means Ugreens fault. And i love my 100w charger. Just wasnt a problem i was expecting to run into and thought maybe it forwarns someone in these comments.
Definitely sticking with the Deck just seems easier to deal with for me personally thanks for the videos on this device I’ll still watch I’m a game lover regardless
Please let us know how your SD card performance is when you get your new one in. I have the same card in my Steam deck and Ally but the read and write speeds on the Ally are abysmal. Downloading a game (in Steam) to the card i get throttled down to 5-8MB/s, whereas on the Deck I typically sit in the high 20s/low 30s. It also takes forever to load games from the card. At this point the SD card slot is practically unusable
Hello, I have exacly the same issue with Samsung Pro Plus microSD 512GB 160/120 A2 V30 formated to NTFS. Games load and works fine. It just takes forever to downlod them to sd card. The same card works great on steam deck. I have just tested it.
Seems a little weird that the charger can't fully support both devices at once. Even simply dividing the power evenly between the ports would still give 70W each. Does the "35W" mode of the ally really take over 70W, or is something weird going on with the charger?
The Ally is picky about chargers. If it doesn’t like the charger for whatever reason, it’ll throttle the power input and lock out the top performance profile(s). It’s not the first ASUS product that does this either.
When having multiple devices plugged into the charger, it doesn’t divide everything equally. I’m not sure what the reason is that u green does this but different ports delivered different amount of power.
There IS also a weird situation where the Ally is plugged into certain chargers or docks. The UI SAYS it’s in 25W turbo (not the expected 30W turbo) but that seems to be a UI issue and not actually true. It’s been discussed on an ally discord a bunch. For example, i did timespy benchmarking the other day. The scores i got directly plugged into my charger (labeled 30W turbo) and when i used a 3rd party dock (which labeled 25w in the command center) were the exact same. Meanwhile, i unplugged my unit and ran on 25W turbo (battery only) and got a much lower score. Others have shown the actual power draws were the same too. So it seems there’s a chance that ally saying “25W turbo” instead of 30W turbo when plugged in is just a mislabeled UI
Thanks for some useful information. I was wondering why my SD Card wasn’t showing in Steam. I might need to invest in another charger that has more ports
I don't like Armory crate starting up I prefer either steam big picture or playnite. Since the ally doesn't have a Xbox button I mapped it to select as second action
I need a reliable dock solution. One that can support the highest performance the stand alone rog ally offers { plugged in } with at least 2 USB ports. 1 usb for an external ssd and other for wired controller.
I don’t have one specifically built for the ally, but pretty much any steam deck case will also work with the Ally, it will just be a little loose in there
more problems than its worth at this point, already had to factory reset my rog ally twice due to updates causing problems and not being able to fix them. Easier to just factory reset and start over again. Just recently updated all software on rog ally and now the armoury crate se does not work any more even it opens no issue but shorts cuts don't work and it does not recognize the controller function anymore and only the left side joystick lights up. Updates are the system worse and hassle to fix
Hello. Do you have any tips regarding the fps limiter? It doesn't seem to work for me, no matter how I execute it. I wonder if Im doing something wrong or if it's an issue that Asus needs to fix? Other than that, I love the ROG Ally. Incredible handheld.
i've noticed that using other 65w chargers doesn't auto shift the rog ally to turbo mode (30w). Why is that? I can only put it to 25w and that's all i can go to. Same with plugging via usb4 to my monitor.
It seems to not like some chargers. I have a 65w Anker charger and it won't go full power on that thing. It wouldn't even update the firmware when using it.
@@rsawyer757 figured that was the case. I hope someone updates this with a list of verified chargers that enable it to go into 30w turbo mode and beyond.
great information... i cringed every time you had to touch the screen, but, since it runs windows and has no trackpad...good thing you can. I may have to look into picking one of these up eventually.
I bought the Logitech g cloud and use it all the time. I bought the Ally and was so annoyed with it that I returned it and went back to the g cloud. If anything the Ally made me a bigger fan of game streaming.
@@JohnRodriguezVodnikHOTS I have steam on PC and it's a pain in the ass to run. Plus because steam is running in the background it takes away performance from the games. Single player games don't need the steam client to run so why is it running? Getting tired of multiple shit running in the background that's not needed to run games. This always online BS needs to stop because all that's doing is using more data and most people have data caps because internet providers are aholes.
@@wade196840 I'd argue most people have fairly reasonable data caps or none. I used to have a cap that I never hit. I stream all TV content, music stream all day most days and game online and use only about 300gb a month. Steam barely uses any resources so idk what you're talking about. You can disable the steam overlay that steam puts on games if your games are struggling to run but I haven't had to do that to a game in probably 4 or 5 years
The only issue I have had with my Ally is that the micro SD card wouldn't show up,to find out the Ally or win11 treats sd cards as an ssd and you have to set it up like one in disk management.😊
I've seen so many issues with the SD CARD from people saying it's not showing up to its frying their card to it's not showing up. I was going to buy this but not sure now.
@glovedcop69 I've had mine almost a month and nothing has happened to mine. Stop crying amd just buy it and wait till they fix it in an update since they're already aware.
So I just got this portable PC to replace my old failing HP laptop & after going thru a WEEK of setup, making a MS account, daily updates, etc. I tried using 4 different bluetooth earbuds, only to have all say CONNECTED, but still play the audio only out the speakers! HELP! 😭
I got rid of my deck for this. I don't play indie titles really. Just AAA and emulation. I'm stoked. Does the ally still go into turbo mode while docked? I heard a lot of docks don't support that.
It’s a weird UI thing. Some docks only say that it’s in 25 watt mode. But actually the benchmarking and power draw shows that it is functioning as a 30
@@AndrewD50297045 as someone who has used windows for almost 30 years (but prefers Mac) I’m finding it totally fine. I know how to use windows. It does what i want it to do. I kinda don’t quite understand those who passionately hate windows but i know on a channel like this I’m in the minority there
I‘m begging. My command center and Army button does not work. I press the buttons on the side and nothing happens. All the updates are done and I soft restarted my device.
I've seen so many issues with the SD CARD from people saying it's not showing up to its frying their card to it's not showing up. I was going to buy this but not sure now.
If I remap the back buttons to be A/B in game, will those shortcuts get in the way? Actually can I even remap them to be face buttons? Idk if they were designed to be hot keys only but I doubt that’s the case.
@@NerdNest sorry I wasn’t clear, but I wanted to map the back buttons to input as the face buttons. And I didn’t know if that would conflict with the pre-programmed hotkeys. Or will the hotkeys on the back buttons be disabled when I remap them? For reference I have my L4/5 and R4/5 back buttons on my Steam Deck mapped to ABXY. I’m wondering if I did that with the Ally and mapped the back buttons to A/B, if it might accidentally trigger a hotkey kind of like what you described at 15:22 ?
I just got one of these and I'm having trouble with the sound. I can't hear my game through my headphones but when I check to see if they are connected to my ROG, they test sound comes through the headphones. No matter what setting I hit it switched the sound of my grand always came through the ROG speakers not my headphones.
My controls stopped working,.tried resetting it all and nothing, no rgb lights, so for now i use it as a desktop but i need to get it fixed, How do i go about returning it to asus rma ? At this point im willing to wait to get it fixed
Steam made a great UI... This video only solidifies how comfortable people are with steam and that they are willing to forgo the original OS intended for the Aly.
Not really, I don't see many people making the switch from Windows to SteamOS. By doing that they'll be forgoing some of the advantages of using Windows, such as: Zero reliance on Proton (which does not support over 50% of Steam's library at this time), compatibility with more launchers, no DRM/antri-cheat limitations for certain games, usage of the XG port, wider driver availability for controllers and peripherals, wider range of emulators (e.g. Xenia isn't available on Linux) and emulation frontends, a high amount of proprietary software for productivity, such as photo and video editing. Windows has obvious problems of its own, but for many the pros outweigh the cons.
@@OutlawMantis let's not forget the ally will receive updates these people try to shit on the handheld but steam deck had many many issues and people accepted it's issues now a new lion is in town they want to shi talk this handheld so badly now I'm going to buy one
I’m guessing no one’s talking about it, because the XG mobile unit is ridiculously expensive and most people just don’t have one. I know that’s the case for me.
I wonder if you have any advice im trying to play project zomboid on the rog ally and it seems to really quickly heat up and the frame rate drops significantly. Any advice
you know can just change resolution in windows to 720p as well? I saw you complaining about this in your last video but assumed something else was going on and that it couldn't be that you just didn't know how to change display setting in windows! Yes the button in AC is handy, but all it's doing is changing windows resolution.
Shouldn’t you just use FSR to get the frame boost from the game running at a lower rendering? Diablo 4 is FSR capable. I’m on medium at 1080p FSR and getting 60-70 fps
Can you tell me how to get games to look decent in dock mode. Mine looks good on windows but when i run a game it looks like crap. I have a LG OLED. Do i need to change settings on my tv. Im lost
When I turn on the device, and try to login to window, and it says there is something error for login… and my email security question doesn’t work.. what should I do ?
I love my ally so far but the left joystick lights started flashing no matter what setting I have it on. Frustrating but only a cosmetic issue. I don't use the lights anyway lol
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What about the link to the dock. Thanks!
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Does 100w charger + dock will unlock full turbo at 30w?I have only 25w when docked + 65W charger
you didn't add how to add Gyroscope to games which can support like horizon zero dawn.
Diablo 4 resolution issue was actually an easy fix. It was set to window border mode out of the box and then changed it from that to full screen mode then the game allowed me to change the resolution.
To be honest, I don't understand the title. These are not problems, but configuration and tips and tricks that can also be used on a normal gaming Asus PC. The ROG Ally is a PC and not a console. Everyone who has bought it or wants to buy it should be aware of this!
Resolution was already added to my command center by default when I powered on my ROG Ally the first time. It also had frame rate control on the command center by default as well. Asus probably made those changes before they shipped the retail version of the ROG Ally based on feedback from testers and reviewers. The game profile was super useful changing button mapping outside of game settings and not having to rely on Steam controller settings and profiles is super useful thanks for sharing that. The one piece of advice that I would give to new ASUS ROG Ally owners is in the command center there is a Control Mode button I would leave this on auto unless a game you're playing doesn't recognize the rog ally as a controller. If that happens with a game you're playing then switch this to Gamepad mode which forces a controller profile instead of a typical mouse and keyboard layout. Also if you switch the button back to auto or desktop when you go to use Windows the joystick on the right hand side will move your mouse around your desktop and pressing the joystick button acts as your left click and hitting the right trigger button as your right click.
Regarding battery packs: Those were all good recommendations. I’m personally using the Anker 737. It does up to 140 W output and can actually charge the Ally in the full 30W turbo mode (not just the 25). It’s great
How many full charges can you charge the Ally? Can it at least charge it twice? That would add at least 2 more hours of gaming lol. I'm thinking of buying one.
It is insane! But it is expensive I think
Does it allow it to change FPPT, SPPT in the manual operation mode to the higher wattaged 43 and 53 W like you can with the Asus Chargers
@@ominousview no idea. I stopped using the boosts to aid stability
I’m a true blue Steam Deck lover. But I enjoy your videos so I still watch the Ally ones. 😂
Same lol, steam deck is just perfect to me.
Absolutely 🖤
Same
Ditto
Completely agree. I don't hate the Alley at all, but for me it's just too expensive for a hand-held that I use casually next to my more powerful PC that I use for demanding titles. The Steam Deck (I bought the 64Gb version and upgraded it with a bigger SSD) is just more fitting for me. Both financial and performance-wise...
For anyone who is trying to add already existing games from an SD card to steam and it is stuck in a loop of verifying files, run steam as an administrator and that should fix it.
Great content. Steam Deck and ROG Ally, both have different usage. Steam Deck for Indies (more battery time), ROG Ally for AAA titles (more muscle power).
Deck can play aaa too. I'd say the biggest difference in use case is if you play online multi-player games a lot. Even then that's only assuming you don't install windows on deck
Yeah, I see this device for people who are high end gamers, those with a lot of disposable income, and those that prefer the Windows environment over Steam OS. As you say, I use my Steam Deck for mostly indies and older AA and AAA titles. Not interested in the ROG Ally, but glad other people have the choice.
@@CyberClu WIndows environment in anything different from a full-fledged PC is a nightmare
The Ally is the next step in some ways and for me it’s been equal parts great and nightmare but when it works it seems like the next generation from the deck. It has a lot of things to be ironed out but I think if they can manage that and include stuff like auto TDP, it will be on par with where the SteamDeck is now.
I can’t help but imagine how great the Ally might be if Valve made it and right now the Ally serves as a reminder of how great the Deck is currently but I think the Ally is what the market needed and so supporting it is reasonable to me for now.
Thanks for the video. Imagine if it had steam OS native. 100 dollars cheaper and or slightly higher capacity battery
I LOVE this device. The Steam Deck and the Ally will coexist in my household and will have different functions. Right now, the Deck is going to be my indie and retro mouse and keyboard PC gaming device. The trackpads do great with those. The Ally is now my emulation and AAA device. God of War III AND MGS 4 run beautifully. I can hardly believe I’m running those particular PS3 games on a handheld. Windows has its problems but emulation ease of setup and options isn’t one of them. Retrobat and Launchbox here I come.
I also nixxed the armory crate software for now. Playnite has been a surprisingly great substitute.
trackpads are amazing for circular motions in fighting games too. and also when combined with gyro in shooters... esp, if you remove vertical aiming from the trackpad and use gyro for that. it's actually incredibly good.
@@SCORP1ONF1RE Exactly, the Steam Deck isn’t going anywhere. The Deck and Ally, both have a place in my daily backpack
If you want to do a lot of emulation with your Ally I highly recommend ChimeraOS with Emudeck.
In Diablo 4's case (And most other modern games), you can make the game render below 1080p while having the HUD at 1080p within the game settings
Look for things like "Super Resolution" or "Dynamic Resolution" in games then set the settings as "Performance" and/or change the resolution percentage to any value of 1080p
For example I've set my Diablo 4 (1080p) at "Performance" in Super Resolution and I'm getting ~70fps with 15w mode while having the 1080p HUD still
Can barely hit 50fps with the same settings. Interesting.
Starting to wonder just how much variability there is in the hardware.
@@mechanicalmonk2020You must be running the newest BIOS (3.19). It's known that there is a problem with 3.19 (vs 3.17) that causes many games to run with ~33% less performance, including diablo 4
Same here. I was watching that part thinking the same thing. Just gotta use that FSR! I’m probably closer to 60s on 15W only pushing to 70s/80s using turbo mode. BUt still, much easier than system changing the resolution. Just use FSR!
The issue with losing 35W option when plugging in another USB device is a bug that Asus has aknowldged they are fixing, It's not that your little GB pocket(or whatever) is drawing more than 70W.
Oh, I’m aware that the Retroid pocket flip isn’t drawing 70 wants. But when you plug multiple things into the 140 W charger, the amount of power that goes to each USB slot changes. This is independent of the fact that there’s some kind of bug that you’re mentioning, but that’s really good information so thank you.
Diablo 4 is only Windows full screen mode so you cant change resolution in game. There is no exclusive full screen option. That is not a Ally issue as it's the same on my desktop and laptop.
Excellent, I'm an old timer and still learned something. Thank you
Great to hear!
I don’t see myself buying this thing. Your videos have only verified my suspicions. Thanks dude. The deck is more than I need and I love it.
Glad I could help
The deck is weak and 🗑️
@@troymoviemadness7130 this ain’t it.
@@NerdNest no I was referring to that other guy that the steam deck is trash and weak haha
So basically you have no idea what the Ally is like and you prefer a child's toy like the steam deck because you saw some videos and only focused on the few unimportant negatives, ignoring all the rest that make it way better than the steam deck.
I have had zero issues with my ally. A lot of these returns are to best buys as someone can return a product as much as they can within a certain time. Also they have display units , people just see games running on it and buy it. Then when they get one home and turn it on they are greater to windows. Have no idea what they doing and delete or screwup the setting then nothing works they declare it as defective and return it.
People hoping for a console experience will never happen until Microsoft release a gaming specific os for pc along the lines of Xbox os. But they are so far behind on pc just look at Xbox gamebar it’s shocking bad. They could have a gamebar that opens up like Xbox dashboard with all your games and setting.
I have put my ally through hell installed multiple os inc steam os used cloud recovery about 10 times now. Any issues I have had are of my own making but I love it. People’s expectations of a slim handheld pc need to be tempered. I mean being able to play cyberpunk at 70fps in my bed is amazing.
The experience will get better, but to really shine this is not asus problem but Microsoft’s.
Ya man, i totally understand what you're saying, the difference between Steam Deck and ROG Ally is that the Deck is handheld console, while the Ally is portable gaming PC, you can tinker around with Windows more and in easier and familiar fashion than Deck, meanwhile keeping the decent performance on games.
Dead zone fix!!! The sticks needs to be calibrated in windows! Windows see’s the Ally sticks as a 360 game pad, these need to be calibrated, make sure Ally is in Game pad mode and use a mouse to run through the process! In Search type “set up usb game controller”, properties…flow instructions
There's a 3d model available on thingiverse for a clip to attach the baseus powerbank to the back of the Ally! It works great and doubles as a stand!
Second half of this video had tons of hints i didn’t know about. Thanks!
Got my ally yesterday and im blown away. I fkn love it!
I just picked up one of these, and I find your video very helpful. Thank you I really appreciate it. Was wondering why my SD Card wasn't showing up. Also, the fingerprint redo tip is great! Hello... 😊 I am also going to be playing Streetfighter 6 on it. So glad to here it is running well. Well, just wanted to say Thank you very much! I Appreciate you.
I could metaphorically kiss you bill .Such an easy fix with the SD card as opposed to others . Followed you on stadia , Steam deck and saw this . Thank you ,much appreciated with this fix
Glad to see you post today!
I like that green charger too. I have a 200 watt charger from them. But when you talk about points of failure and the cord. What about the foldable plug. That’s the first thing that will fail. And I think way before the cord on the factory charger
bro i just stream AAA's from pc to my deck -- 60fps in everything, 4-5hours battery, trackpads, gyro, and no storage use on deck.
if you got a decent pc -- buy a gaming router, and you are set.
Then why buy a steam deck if you're just gonna use it like a Logitech q, I've played about 30 hours of diablo on my ally and it gets 70 fps on 15w in 720. The ally is the future old man
Thanks for the video! Some of these tips I had figured out myself but some of them were new to me!
For moving the real time monitor. If you are in 'Auto' you can move it, then immediately go back to playing without having to switch control modes back and forth.
That game profile stuff is great. Didnt know about that one. I was manually changing my triggers when playing shooters. Thanks for the tip.
This is a very useful and descriptive intro, thanks for sharing, I have had a left and trigger issue as they are not being responsive, hope I could resolve this by changing the sensitivity, thanks!
Awesome video, I loved the bonus tips
Here’s a tip that works great for me. I remapped M1 and down to “close program”. This is important so you can quickly and easily kill a game/program to save battery.
Are you worried that you'll inadvertently kill a game in the middle of a fight or something?
I'd rather use the Ctrl alt delete shortcut (hold command center button) for that and open task manager to close the game
I'd mess it up and close my games by accident 😅
I wonder if you can help me out with an ROG Ally problem I'm having. I've been doing everything docked lately (which I do with my JSAUX dock and a 100W USB-C charger which is needed for full turbo due to the power consumption by the dock) which has been good in most aspects. I use a small Logitech wireless keyboard which has a trackpad and it's so much easier to do things. I've been setting up lots of emulators in LaunchBox and installed/played a few games.
However, the problems come from the fact I don't have easy access to certain hardware buttons on the ROG Ally while docked. Specifically, those four white buttons used for Armoury Crate and the Command Centre. (Or whatever it's called.) While it's great that Armoury Crate has mapping options for the ROG Ally, unfortunately that mapping functionality does not extend to controllers. I can't find any good way to map to a controller. No keyboard shortcuts I know of for certain things. My 8BitDo Ultimate controller has two paddles.
What if I wanted to map those to Armoury Crate and the Command Centre so I can make some quick config changes in-game, like changing the operating mode to turbo? Or what if I wanted to map the four paddles on my Xbox Elite to correspond to those four white buttons? I don't know any way to do that. It's a shame and apparently a huge oversight on Asus' part. If there aren't some shotcuts I've somehow missed that I could map to my controllers, I hope that Asus will add this in a future update. It's ridiculous that you don't have quick access to these vital functions from a controller. You can't just pull out your keyboard and alt-tab out of a game to go to Armoury Crate without there being a small risk of a game crash in Windows.
Thank you for these fixes! The resolution change is helpful!
You can drag the system monitor window, move it off your D4 map.
Keep watching
Great video! I own those 2 Ugreen chargers and love them!
Hey man, I love your videos, continue like this. Wanted to ask you, do you have a burn out in the center-right upper side. There is some light blowing, can you notice it?
I'm not seeing anything /shrug
Dude thank you for the shortcuts
Hi there!
What do you think of a 200-watt charger? Is it going to damage the Asus Rog Ally battery or overheat it?
This was very helpful. Thank you!
if you figure out how to turn off the macro buttons on the back of the device, please include that in a future video. i’ve gone into armory crate and set them to unassigned status for game mode and desktop mode, but i will still trigger the projection mode macro while playing and windows pop up mid-game. it’s just the worst…
Nice and useful tips bro! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
hold one of the back button and push down on the d-pad brings up task manager.
hold one of the back button again and press up on the d-pad invokes the keyboard.
"Desktop Mode" 😂😂❤😂
Thanks for the awesome video! The only problem I'm having with my ASUS ROG Ally is that it will not play Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga at all by my SD 512MB plays the game just fine!!! I've deleted the lego game from cloud saves, deleted the games from both devices. I then reinstalled Steam on the ASUS, and installed Lego back and it still will not play. Very slow loading that never gets to function. All my other AAA titles are blazing fast. I'll keep troubleshooting. My Asus has all the current updates.
Hi! Thank you for great video!!! (as usual 😊) As far as I understood that bottleneck of Rog Ally is battery life. Is any way to fix it or it’s only on dev side?
That's what the battery packs he showed are for if you don't mind carrying them around ❤️
Everyone has the steam deck vs rog ally debate, I am a PC gamer and appreciate both, but for me I have a gaming PC but its big and bulky and hard to move around. Sometimes i want to lay in bed in a different room and play some pc games with my partner, and every friday i visit family and would love to bring a gaming handheld with me.
For me, its always near power and battery / windows doesnt annoy me as ive used previous GPD window devices, i am just waiting on my tax return to get the rog ally!
First of all great video. Loving the content. I do have a question about the power supply. Is it safe to use an higher wattage power supply on this device? I would think it would be too much power going to the device and may cause it to burn out faster.
it's okay, because modern chargers have Auto id, it identifies how much power your device needs, example - the Ally maximum power input is 65 watts, the charger will only give 65 watts to Ally even though the charger is a 100 watts charger..
@@Molacules Thanks for the response.
You forget to say that the Ally has extra power limit after fully charged with attached cable. After this, turbo mode goes up to 45W and You have the best possible performance.
You should say also about hybrid memory that you can assign between RAM and VRAM depends on your needs. This option is available under settings tab in armoury crate app.
It's a great piece of technology, actually you can have in your hands a device with cpu performance similar to i9-10900K, that's awesome! But also has many 'childhood problems' and in my opinion, this gadget must be under power cord all the time otherwise is useless... 50-1h on the battery with locked 30W is a joke. In many AAA titles 1h it's a one quest/task, a few races - without bigger battery or fast charging is very problematic thing.
Regarding the use of Dock Station on it, have you done any setup on W11 in order to work or just connect the ROG Ally into the Dock? Mine dock works with Steam Deck but with ROG Ally dont. Thanks!
may i ask a simple question just how do you pause and then re-start when playing a game on the ROG ALLY?
That dock does not ally the ally to hit the 30 turbo. Those battery packs also does not allow the ally to hit 30 watt turbo.
Did you ever have the problem that the controls are not being recognized by the game? I have that for example for League of Legends or Black Desert. Do I need to set something up extra?
which is the best power bank for asus rog ally to play it on turbo while plugged in under 70 dollars
Hello just figured out was wondering if you could cover it. You can use rewasd for PSRemote Play without a controller. If you have the official Rog Ally dock it bypasses the controller.
Just wanted to pipe in about the uGreen wall chargers. I bought the 100w charger upon your recommendation because i do alot of travel for work and was tired of having four different blocks around. The ugreen eliminated those other blocjs but has created a new problem. Its so heavy that when you end up using hotel power that has very used wall connections the block will just slide out of the wall sometimes.
This is by no means Ugreens fault. And i love my 100w charger. Just wasnt a problem i was expecting to run into and thought maybe it forwarns someone in these comments.
Definitely sticking with the Deck just seems easier to deal with for me personally thanks for the videos on this device I’ll still watch I’m a game lover regardless
Noob
Please let us know how your SD card performance is when you get your new one in. I have the same card in my Steam deck and Ally but the read and write speeds on the Ally are abysmal. Downloading a game (in Steam) to the card i get throttled down to 5-8MB/s, whereas on the Deck I typically sit in the high 20s/low 30s. It also takes forever to load games from the card. At this point the SD card slot is practically unusable
Sound like user error
Card is probably formatted to FAT32, needs to be NTFS on ally
Hello, I have exacly the same issue with
Samsung Pro Plus microSD 512GB 160/120 A2 V30 formated to NTFS. Games load and works fine. It just takes forever to downlod them to sd card.
The same card works great on steam deck. I have just tested it.
So I am going to upgrade the SSD because I have heard overheating issues with the SD port. have they fixed it?
You are my favorite Nerd keep it up broooooo
Seems a little weird that the charger can't fully support both devices at once. Even simply dividing the power evenly between the ports would still give 70W each. Does the "35W" mode of the ally really take over 70W, or is something weird going on with the charger?
The Ally is picky about chargers. If it doesn’t like the charger for whatever reason, it’ll throttle the power input and lock out the top performance profile(s).
It’s not the first ASUS product that does this either.
When having multiple devices plugged into the charger, it doesn’t divide everything equally. I’m not sure what the reason is that u green does this but different ports delivered different amount of power.
There IS also a weird situation where the Ally is plugged into certain chargers or docks. The UI SAYS it’s in 25W turbo (not the expected 30W turbo) but that seems to be a UI issue and not actually true. It’s been discussed on an ally discord a bunch. For example, i did timespy benchmarking the other day. The scores i got directly plugged into my charger (labeled 30W turbo) and when i used a 3rd party dock (which labeled 25w in the command center) were the exact same. Meanwhile, i unplugged my unit and ran on 25W turbo (battery only) and got a much lower score. Others have shown the actual power draws were the same too.
So it seems there’s a chance that ally saying “25W turbo” instead of 30W turbo when plugged in is just a mislabeled UI
I have the ivoler dock and from some reason the rog ally don't use the turbo 30w, only 25w.
Can you comfirm the same in your end?
Thanks for some useful information. I was wondering why my SD Card wasn’t showing in Steam. I might need to invest in another charger that has more ports
I don't like Armory crate starting up I prefer either steam big picture or playnite. Since the ally doesn't have a Xbox button I mapped it to select as second action
I need a reliable dock solution. One that can support the highest performance the stand alone rog ally offers { plugged in } with at least 2 USB ports. 1 usb for an external ssd and other for wired controller.
65W charger / power bank won't work with docked Ally - there will be no turbo mode. You missed that detail.
I don’t dock the ally with a battery bank. If it’s docked I just plug it into the wall.
Bill, do you have a case you use that works with the Ally? I don't want the ROG one cause I think it is too "gamery"
I don’t have one specifically built for the ally, but pretty much any steam deck case will also work with the Ally, it will just be a little loose in there
more problems than its worth at this point, already had to factory reset my rog ally twice due to updates causing problems and not being able to fix them. Easier to just factory reset and start over again. Just recently updated all software on rog ally and now the armoury crate se does not work any more even it opens no issue but shorts cuts don't work and it does not recognize the controller function anymore and only the left side joystick lights up. Updates are the system worse and hassle to fix
This machine will have deck collecting dust . Im obsessed with this machine. So glad i bought it
Hello. Do you have any tips regarding the fps limiter? It doesn't seem to work for me, no matter how I execute it. I wonder if Im doing something wrong or if it's an issue that Asus needs to fix? Other than that, I love the ROG Ally. Incredible handheld.
i've noticed that using other 65w chargers doesn't auto shift the rog ally to turbo mode (30w). Why is that? I can only put it to 25w and that's all i can go to. Same with plugging via usb4 to my monitor.
It seems to not like some chargers. I have a 65w Anker charger and it won't go full power on that thing. It wouldn't even update the firmware when using it.
@@rsawyer757 figured that was the case. I hope someone updates this with a list of verified chargers that enable it to go into 30w turbo mode and beyond.
If you leave it in auto, you can just grab it and move it any time
I prefer manual
great information... i cringed every time you had to touch the screen, but, since it runs windows and has no trackpad...good thing you can. I may have to look into picking one of these up eventually.
Think I'll just use GeForce now a Razer kishi and my phone. These steam decks look like a pain in the butt to use
I bought the Logitech g cloud and use it all the time. I bought the Ally and was so annoyed with it that I returned it and went back to the g cloud. If anything the Ally made me a bigger fan of game streaming.
If using this is difficult then you must not pc game
@@JohnRodriguezVodnikHOTS I have steam on PC and it's a pain in the ass to run. Plus because steam is running in the background it takes away performance from the games. Single player games don't need the steam client to run so why is it running? Getting tired of multiple shit running in the background that's not needed to run games. This always online BS needs to stop because all that's doing is using more data and most people have data caps because internet providers are aholes.
@@wade196840 I'd argue most people have fairly reasonable data caps or none. I used to have a cap that I never hit. I stream all TV content, music stream all day most days and game online and use only about 300gb a month.
Steam barely uses any resources so idk what you're talking about. You can disable the steam overlay that steam puts on games if your games are struggling to run but I haven't had to do that to a game in probably 4 or 5 years
@@JohnRodriguezVodnikHOTS how do you game ? My monthly data is 5000gbs a month
The only issue I have had with my Ally is that the micro SD card wouldn't show up,to find out the Ally or win11 treats sd cards as an ssd and you have to set it up like one in disk management.😊
Noob
I've seen so many issues with the SD CARD from people saying it's not showing up to its frying their card to it's not showing up. I was going to buy this but not sure now.
@glovedcop69 I've had mine almost a month and nothing has happened to mine. Stop crying amd just buy it and wait till they fix it in an update since they're already aware.
Days Gone is a great game to try out on the Ally, not sure how I feep about the game itself but it looks great 😅
@@mechanicalmonk2020 huh?
Criminally underrated game.
So I just got this portable PC to replace my old failing HP laptop & after going thru a WEEK of setup, making a MS account, daily updates, etc. I tried using 4 different bluetooth earbuds, only to have all say CONNECTED, but still play the audio only out the speakers! HELP! 😭
What are the internet connection options? Or is it Wi-Fi only.
I got rid of my deck for this. I don't play indie titles really. Just AAA and emulation. I'm stoked. Does the ally still go into turbo mode while docked? I heard a lot of docks don't support that.
It’s a weird UI thing. Some docks only say that it’s in 25 watt mode. But actually the benchmarking and power draw shows that it is functioning as a 30
@@BigKurzMD weird. Good to know. Thanks. The reason I'm getting it is for windows and the big annoyance with it is.... Windows lol
@@AndrewD50297045 as someone who has used windows for almost 30 years (but prefers Mac) I’m finding it totally fine. I know how to use windows. It does what i want it to do. I kinda don’t quite understand those who passionately hate windows but i know on a channel like this I’m in the minority there
I‘m begging. My command center and Army button does not work. I press the buttons on the side and nothing happens. All the updates are done and I soft restarted my device.
I’m having this issue now!!! It doesn’t want to do anything!!! What did you do to fix it?
@@BodofLegend I factory reset it and now it works.
@@ororomunroe8218 ouch! Really? Nothing else worked? How long ago this happened?
I've seen so many issues with the SD CARD from people saying it's not showing up to its frying their card to it's not showing up. I was going to buy this but not sure now.
I have an issue with the left bumper isn’t doing what’s supposed to it’s just copping the left trigger
If I remap the back buttons to be A/B in game, will those shortcuts get in the way?
Actually can I even remap them to be face buttons? Idk if they were designed to be hot keys only but I doubt that’s the case.
You can remap the face buttons
@@NerdNest sorry I wasn’t clear, but I wanted to map the back buttons to input as the face buttons. And I didn’t know if that would conflict with the pre-programmed hotkeys. Or will the hotkeys on the back buttons be disabled when I remap them?
For reference I have my L4/5 and R4/5 back buttons on my Steam Deck mapped to ABXY. I’m wondering if I did that with the Ally and mapped the back buttons to A/B, if it might accidentally trigger a hotkey kind of like what you described at 15:22 ?
I just got one of these and I'm having trouble with the sound. I can't hear my game through my headphones but when I check to see if they are connected to my ROG, they test sound comes through the headphones. No matter what setting I hit it switched the sound of my grand always came through the ROG speakers not my headphones.
My controls stopped working,.tried resetting it all and nothing, no rgb lights, so for now i use it as a desktop but i need to get it fixed,
How do i go about returning it to asus rma ? At this point im willing to wait to get it fixed
Steam made a great UI... This video only solidifies how comfortable people are with steam and that they are willing to forgo the original OS intended for the Aly.
Not really, I don't see many people making the switch from Windows to SteamOS. By doing that they'll be forgoing some of the advantages of using Windows, such as: Zero reliance on Proton (which does not support over 50% of Steam's library at this time), compatibility with more launchers, no DRM/antri-cheat limitations for certain games, usage of the XG port, wider driver availability for controllers and peripherals, wider range of emulators (e.g. Xenia isn't available on Linux) and emulation frontends, a high amount of proprietary software for productivity, such as photo and video editing.
Windows has obvious problems of its own, but for many the pros outweigh the cons.
@@OutlawMantis let's not forget the ally will receive updates these people try to shit on the handheld but steam deck had many many issues and people accepted it's issues now a new lion is in town they want to shi talk this handheld so badly now I'm going to buy one
He didn't forgo the original os if the ally. He just put steam in big picture. It's still running windows
@@JohnRodriguezVodnikHOTS exactly. This is what i did. Steam opens on start up and in big picture.
All good points but what about the fact that a recent firmware update has made the XG mobile unit an expensive brick? Why is no one talking about it?
I’m guessing no one’s talking about it, because the XG mobile unit is ridiculously expensive and most people just don’t have one. I know that’s the case for me.
I wonder if you have any advice im trying to play project zomboid on the rog ally and it seems to really quickly heat up and the frame rate drops significantly. Any advice
you know can just change resolution in windows to 720p as well? I saw you complaining about this in your last video but assumed something else was going on and that it couldn't be that you just didn't know how to change display setting in windows! Yes the button in AC is handy, but all it's doing is changing windows resolution.
Shouldn’t you just use FSR to get the frame boost from the game running at a lower rendering? Diablo 4 is FSR capable. I’m on medium at 1080p FSR and getting 60-70 fps
in your hearts of hearts, which handheld do you like most overall?
For me I do prefer the steam deck for comfort, the console-like experience and the trackpads.
Ha, imagine if Valve did the switch button remapping thing on purpose as a prank. lol.
Can you tell me how to get games to look decent in dock mode. Mine looks good on windows but when i run a game it looks like crap. I have a LG OLED. Do i need to change settings on my tv. Im lost
When I turn on the device, and try to login to window, and it says there is something error for login… and my email security question doesn’t work.. what should I do ?
I can’t open a windows batch file for elden ring it just opens the keyboard and it disappears so I don’t know what to do please help me
Thats the reason im ok with steam deck. All this back and forth with Ally
Is it possible to turn off the LEDs under the sticks?
Just set it to 0 value. That’s what I did anyway.
I love my ally so far but the left joystick lights started flashing no matter what setting I have it on. Frustrating but only a cosmetic issue. I don't use the lights anyway lol
Any idea on how to remove the upper line when playing the game……..the minimize _.. zoom….close X ?
My partner just bought one, her keyboard keeps popping up while playing. How does she fix this
definitely the big barrier for this devices is how difficult is to set up for non pc users
Had any problems with the mouse curser when in windows keeps going left?