The ROG Xbox Ally X and ROG Xbox Ally might not be perfect, but Microsoft and Asus have released updates for the handheld at a breakneck pace so far, similar to the early days of Valve's Steam Deck -- and thankfully, the latest collection of additions are pretty impressive.
Fine-tuning individual games' graphical settings just got easier
Microsoft and Asus seem committed to improving the Xbox Ally X
On a base level, it seems like Microsoft has taken the work out of looking up the best settings for various levels of performance, which means I'll be spending far less time on ROG Ally Life hunting down optimized settings for various games. Officially supported games also now have a "Handheld Optimized" level on their Xbox Store pages. The full list of titles isn't known yet, but below are several Microsoft highlighted in its blog post about the update:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
- Call of Duty: Warzone
- DOOM Eternal
- DOOM: The Dark Ages
- Fortnite
- Forza Horizon 5
- Gears 5
- Gears of War: Reloaded
- Gears Tactics
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection
- Hollow Knight Silksong
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Minecraft
- Sea of Thieves
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4
Turning on the Default Game Profile is a simple process. All you need to do is launch the Armoury Crate Command Center with the Xbox button, and then turn on the Default Game Profile option (it's currently listed as being available in preview). For some reason, the update hasn't landed on my Xbox Ally X yet even though I'm running the latest preview build (I imagine it'll appear soon). While this title list is a great start, hopefully the feature eventually makes its way to every Xbox PC Game Pass title and eventually, third-party games purchased through the Xbox Store.
It will be interesting to see if I'm able to use the Default Game Profile when I'm using the ROG Xbox Ally X in handheld mode, and then flip back to other saved game settings when it's plugged into Asus' powerful Nvidia RTX 5090-powered XG Mobile eGPU. One of my key issues with using the XG Mobile has been constantly flipping between various graphical settings when I dock the ROG Xbox Ally X, so I'm hoping Default Game Profile solves this issue.
ROG Xbox Ally X
- Dimensions
- 11.45 x 4.78 x 1.99-inches (290.8 x 121.5 x 50.7mm)
- Brand
- Asus
- Weight
- 25oz (715g)
- Chipset
- AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme Processor
- RAM
- 24GB LPDDR5X-8000
- Storage
- 1TB M.2 2280 SSD for easier upgrade
More updates are on the way
Most of the improvements are on the quality-of-life side
Along with Default Game Profiles, Microsoft and Asus are bringing several other improvements to the ROG Xbox Ally series, including the following updates:
- Improved Gamepad response after login
- Quicker Library loading, especially for players with large game libraries
- Improved Cloud Gaming page performance, loading more quickly and more responsive
- New Game Gallery filter by Performance Fit, helping you see how well games will run on your device
- Bug fixes and performance enhancements for improved stability and responsiveness
Adding to these updates, next week a Game Save Sync Indicator is coming to the handheld, indicating exactly when your saved progress has synced in the cloud with the Xbox app. I haven't run into save syncing issues very often, but I have encountered issues a few times, particularly when jumping between playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 on my gaming PC and then switching to the ROG Xbox Ally X. I already have access to the Game Save Sync feature, but that's likely because I'm on the Xbox Insider update track.
For more on the ROG Xbox Ally X, check out my review of the handheld.