Friday, July 21st 2023
ROG Ally Gets BIOS Update that Fixes Multiple Usability Issues
ASUS has issued a BIOS update for the ROG Ally that should help resolve multiple usability issues, most of them being fairly minor issues, but they're all quality of life improvements nonetheless. To start with, ASUS has made optimisations to the performance mode with the Ally plugged in to a power source, although the company didn't explain exactly what this means. Another minor improvement allows the "Memory Assigned to GPU" setting to be kept when updating to a new BIOS version, a setting that used to get reset prior to this BIOS release.
Another minor quality of life update is the ability to reduce the backlight to 10 nits now, down from the previous 25 nits, which should make it more comfortable to use the ROG Ally in dark rooms. Finally and possibly the most important part of this update is the ability to charge at 30 W from 65 W or higher rated USB-PD chargers. What ASUS has done here is improvements to the USB-PD "handshake" to make sure that the ROG Ally gets the right power from the power adapter. This was apparently not working as intended previously and the ROG Ally would charge at a slower rate. It should be noted that not all chargers will provide enough power to the ROG Ally, especially if other devices are charging at the same time. ASUS points out that if the battery is draining when the Ally is plugged in, a different charger should be used.
Source:
ASUS ROG Forums
Another minor quality of life update is the ability to reduce the backlight to 10 nits now, down from the previous 25 nits, which should make it more comfortable to use the ROG Ally in dark rooms. Finally and possibly the most important part of this update is the ability to charge at 30 W from 65 W or higher rated USB-PD chargers. What ASUS has done here is improvements to the USB-PD "handshake" to make sure that the ROG Ally gets the right power from the power adapter. This was apparently not working as intended previously and the ROG Ally would charge at a slower rate. It should be noted that not all chargers will provide enough power to the ROG Ally, especially if other devices are charging at the same time. ASUS points out that if the battery is draining when the Ally is plugged in, a different charger should be used.
22 Comments on ROG Ally Gets BIOS Update that Fixes Multiple Usability Issues
The Steam Deck didn't have a perfectly smooth launch either, but looking at Asus flounder around with rookie mistakes, it does kind of impress me just how damn right Valve got it, first time.
Many of the Ally's biggest issues aren't something Asus can fix - they're Microsoft's fault and that rumoured, official Microsoft OS for portable gaming devices can't come soon enough.
As usual, another half-baked, rushed to market product launch, falling prey to the typical money-grubbin "hurry up & get it out there, we'll fix the issues later" mindset...
Hello AsSus, this is your loyal customers calling, and we just want all our stuff to work OOB from day 1, is that really so damned hard ?
They still need to implement a BIOS that allows being able to disable individual cores. I have a gut-feeling that if one can reduce the amount of active cores, you can "convince" SmartShift to provide more power to the iGPU and bypass that 800 MHz issue at 15W (and at 10W). This is why the Steam Deck is still better than the Ally at 10W and less scenarios, since more power is needed to feed 8-cores instead of something like 4. And no, using System Configuration (msconfig.exe) to limit the cores doesn't do much, since that only "parks" the cores, not gates them like in a standard PC BIOS/UEFI.
I run Windows 11 on my steam deck and was happy to hear the Ally shipped with Windows
Microsoft needs to make a simpler version of Windows that excludes lots of their less useful features for a gaming device, they already make one for Xbox it shouldn't be difficult for them to make a similar thing for handheld console, they could even have a dual boot system in which you can select the gaming version of Windows with better performance and battery or the normal Windows with a full windows experience.
Luckily my sister has decided to buy one for my nephew in ~6 weeks time for his birthday, and I'll have it for 1-2 weeks playing with it and getting games on it for him, can't wait to have a tinker and either get it out of my system... or decide I want one sooner rather than later :D
"Yeah, this is the April preview driver which includes support for the 780m that every 7840U unit is using right now, not just in handhelds like the 2S but also in 7840U laptops that are coming out from Lenovo, Acer, Asus and HP. The driver is wildly out of date and is not optimized for recently released games like D4, F1 23 etc. AMD need to release an update in 23.6.1 that brings support for all Phoenix APUs into their generic driver set. "
AMD Ryzen™ 7 - 7840u Adrenaline Drivers - AMD Community
"AMD originally planned to release a new driver on the 20th of this month to solve it. Now AMD has notified that the new driver is expected to be released until the end of July. I believe AMD will definitely solve the driver and software compatibility problem, and it will take a little more time. At that time, the new driver will be released in time at zero moment for everyone to download and install."
微博 (weibo.cn)
rog.asus.com/au/gaming-handhelds/rog-ally/rog-ally-2023/helpdesk_download/
Same with the Steam deck drivers for windows. AMD website doesn’t have them but Valve does and it runs the latest Adrenaline
You can’t compare laptop to handheld gaming devices