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ROG Ally Gets BIOS Update that Fixes Multiple Usability Issues

TheLostSwede

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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.



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All of these issues being fixed is good, but I'm surprised some of these weren't caught pre-launch, especially from an established manufacture like Asus who have 20 years of history making hardware and BIOSes for laptops, phones, tablets.

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.
 
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I'm surprised some of these weren't caught pre-launch
^^THIS^^

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 ?
 

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This was apparently not working as intended previously and the ROG Ally would charge at a slower rate.

Before BIOS 323, the slower rate was either 15W, 18W or 25W depending on the PD charger used (if they support those wattages). I tried it on an Apple 61W charger and the Ally would only request 25W in Turbo mode, but now with the latest BIOS it pulls a good 30W.

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.
 
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When doing these news stories, is there the possibility you can link to the announcement or bios update you're referring to? As an example I dont know what BIOS version this article is talking about, as locally I'm still on BIOS v322.
 

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Good to see updates to the Ally, though I think the next iteration would be great especially with new SOCs from AMD.
 

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Good to see updates to the Ally, though I think the next iteration would be great especially with new SOCs from AMD.
If anything, ditching Windows is probably the best thing to do. Windows is very versatile as a generally system OS, but it is extremely bloated and problematic as a console OS. Most if not all review all pointed this as an issue.
 

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If anything, ditching Windows is probably the best thing to do. Windows is very versatile as a generally system OS, but it is extremely bloated and problematic as a console OS. Most if not all review all pointed this as an issue.
Opposite for me. I actually prefer Windows. It’s very user friendly and way more support for games and different launchers

I run Windows 11 on my steam deck and was happy to hear the Ally shipped with Windows
 
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If anything, ditching Windows is probably the best thing to do. Windows is very versatile as a generally system OS, but it is extremely bloated and problematic as a console OS. Most if not all review all pointed this as an issue.
I disagree, Windows is by far the superior OS because it is compatible with many things unlike Linux or especially MacOS (not saying that Microsoft are good, they are just as bad as Apple or nVidia).
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.
 

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The nerd and hardware enthusiast in me wants one of these, and I love the idea of a potent PC platform handheld and being able to come home and dock it to a GPU, but it's not all ready enough yet for me, and I'd want something more open and universal, like occulink not their proprietary connector.

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
 
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There is definitely a official Graphics driver
Nope. It does not.

"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)
 
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Nope. It does not.
The Ally is using the Z1 Extreme and Asus' website has a download for the driver package. I think this constitutes having an official driver. It certain works and installs just fine on my Ally.

1690383373697.png
 
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The Ally is using the Z1 Extreme and Asus' website has a download for the driver package. I think this constitutes having an official driver. It certain works and installs just fine on my Ally.

View attachment 306397
Working and being optimized are two different things. But AMD released the official driver yesterday. :p
 
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Working and being optimized are two different things. But AMD released the official driver yesterday. :p
First you said they didn't have official drivers, now you're saying optimised drivers. I'm not sure why you're moving the goal posts. Why do you have this chip on your shoulder about the drivers? Also, your new argument about official drivers isn't right either, as it has 7000 APU drivers, such as the 780m, but the Z1 series isn't included in the release notes of those drivers.
 
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First you said they didn't have official drivers, now you're saying optimised drivers. I'm not sure why you're moving the goal posts. Why do you have this chip on your shoulder about the drivers? Also, your new argument about official drivers isn't right either, as it has 7000 APU drivers, such as the 780m, but the Z1 series isn't included in the release notes of those drivers.
No matter what asus says its the same iGPU, whether they will support the recent driver or not is another story. Speaking as someone with a long history of dealing with GPUs and iGPus in laptops (mainly on the red side), I can say that OEM drivers are 99% out of date and almost never updated (perhaps in favor of supposed stability), the point is that having official drivers from the AMD website you get the latest optimizations, fixes and even better compatibility. Using lenovo's dated driver, I couldn't even use the GPU for rendering in blender, imagine the headache. lol
 

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No matter what asus says its the same iGPU, whether they will support the recent driver or not is another story. Speaking as someone with a long history of dealing with GPUs and iGPus in laptops (mainly on the red side), I can say that OEM drivers are 99% out of date and almost never updated (perhaps in favor of supposed stability), the point is that having official drivers from the AMD website you get the latest optimizations, fixes and even better compatibility. Using lenovo's dated driver, I couldn't even use the GPU for rendering in blender, imagine the headache. lol
Now this is simply wrong. The ASUS drivers are definitely not outdated and are current. It’s so simple to check the data log.

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
 
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Now this is simply wrong. The ASUS drivers are definitely not outdated and are current. It’s so simple to check the data log.

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
Oh, You came to make these claims without even checking? I took a look, the driver on the asus website is from 2 months ago. Of course, recently released devices will not have drivers dated years ago, but let's see how the cadence will be in a year or two, or better yet, if it will at least get updated drivers...
 

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Oh, You came to make these claims without even checking? I took a look, the driver on the asus website is from 2 months ago. Of course, recently released devices will not have drivers dated years ago, but let's see how the cadence will be in a year or two, or better yet, if it will at least get updated drivers...
ASUS drivers are dated 6/20/2023 that's literally 1 month. For a handheld device you don't need updates every month as the hardware does not change. Even the latest AMD drivers are dated 7/25/2023 and that only included a few patches for the 7000 series and 6900 Stuttering issue
 
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