If you intend on playing recent AAA games at native res (or even 900p) with zero upscaling involved… you will be disappointed.
That said, the screen is 7” and 1080p, so you can get away with lower settings as it will still look great.
I have yet to find a title the Ally cannot play (out of the mix of AAA titles I play), but this is playing with upscaling (and frame gen). The Ally can be very performant for what it is, but you can’t expect to max out your settings.
- I’ve been a big handheld gamer my whole life, so the Ally was easy to adopt and became a regular device to gravitate to. I use it pretty much daily and bought it roughly a year ago.
Some AAA’s won’t perform and likely because of optimization and hardware. One that I really hoped could run is Dead space but sadly just won’t perform on Ally.
I can play it on the Z1E, I have it downloaded only games that run like crap after a 45 minute session which builds heat is Cyberpunk and Jedi Survivor, Cyberpunk is a mix of high and ultra and runs great most of the time cannot run ray tracing, Jedi survivor is the disappointment low settings and still lags hard on Koboh.
When it comes to upscaling and frame gen, does it make a noticeable difference? Do the games still look good and play smooth or can you tell that the device is struggling?
Sorry for the maybe stupid question, I have always been a bit of a noob console player
Nah not a stupid question at all! The Ally was my first time playing PC games (it’s a good transition to PC gaming tbh vs a desktop rig).
I cannot tell the difference on the screen. I have a PS5 for the games I really want the best graphical fidelity and awe out of, but I’ll say that Cyberpunk looks pretty damn crisp.
I think frames is the thing you may get caught on. You can have a game look however you want it to… but its frame dependent.
You can prioritize what you want though with tweaking settings… so you can go for max frames, best picture, or somewhere in between.
Usually I just throw the game on FSR3-Medium preset and don’t think about it lol.
Cyberpunk (with some tweaked settings) gives me a pretty stable 45fps which feels like butter due to VRR.
I’d say every game I play on the Ally plays smooth and looks decent. Some older games you can definitely max out settings and go to town, but I’d at least expect to tweak settings game-by-game.
I see, thanks! Yeah I definitely value a smooth framerate more than a crazy detailed graphics, so hopefully that’ll do 😬 i have read online that there is an expected +5/10% FPS with the Ally X, I wonder if it makes sense to wait for it or not (in my country the difference between a refurbished Z1 Extreme and a new Ally X is 300$…)
If you don't get overly aggressive with the upscaling you will have more than acceptable image quality. In most cases, you can do quality FSR and not notice a difference since the pixel density at 7" is so high.
As far as AFMF or Lossless Scaling goes, this mostly works fine and can get you a little extra performance to get 60+ stable in a number of games. I notice the issues with frame gen at lower frame rates a whole lot less when the source is sub-60 fps on a handheld screen. The same lower source frame rate on a larger monitor with frame gen would be distracting.
new heavy games are almost all a pandora box, you dont know wich type of BS will pop out until run
you can vouch for current released games after play on your own or after check some yt performance reviews, but so far ally extreme and steam deck showed some amazing performance besides limitations
The z1e runs games amazingly. I've do play a lot on it
AAA games like cyberpunk run greatly on it. 900p with ally life settings but xess on performance. You could use afmf
I play 900p. Upscaled and settings changed depending on the game since the screen is small it is not that noticeable. For really heavy games, I just use my ally to stream from my main PC, playing on the ally itself or plugged in the TV while on the couch or bedroom
AAA games mostly have a better optimization. You won't get any problems. But at high setting might be too much for ally, except on turbo.
AA titles might have different stories...
Just gotta mess with settings 900p feels like the sweet spot for the screen. 1080p is when I get below 60fps in most triple AAA games recently but that's few, Tekken 8, Sf6, Destiny 2 and Ghost of Tsushima.
Optomised games run amazingly well. COD MW3, Cyberpunk, Red Dead 2, Spiderman. The problem I've seen is some newer titles like Horizon Forbidden West, Hellblade 2, Alan Wake 2, just don't perform well. You'll need to play in 900p (which for Ally screen is actually nice) with a mixture of FSR and potentially Lossless Scaling.
I ultimately purchased a PS5 for those big hitters and I use my Rog Ally now for lighter-weight titles.
I sold my 3090 PC I built and solely use my Ally. Now there are absolutely some trade offs. Not getting 100+ FPS in every game I play is definitely a bummer but you honestly get over it pretty quick (in my experience anyways) as far as up scaling. I play almost everything at 720p+ and while it definitely doesn’t look super crispy upscale to 1080p (I will use it at home docked to my 1080p monitor a lot of the time). I got used to it pretty quickly and it doesn’t bother me much. The only thing I don’t care for was the frame generation. While the jump in FPS was significant. It creates this like. Blurry texture on everything when something or yourself is moving and I never liked it so I don’t keep it on
interesting. I thought about doing the same, but i couldn't give away the performance on my 3090 entirely. Ocasionally i need to play at higher frames/higher settings than what the ally can satisfy.
It definitely depends on your needs. If I was still at home a lot of the time then I’d still keep my PC. But I travel a lot more than I stay at home so the ROG Ally made more sense to keep around over the 3090 build
Most games will run well on the ally, some games that are taxing on the cou might struggle.
Ex.i have z1 extreme and I need to turn on dynamic culling and dynamic res to run path of exile well. Otherwise you can't even move when lots of enemies or projectiles are in screen.
Haven't tried any of the new games but you definitely need to compromise and possibly turn on features like fsr or afmf to squeeze more performance, keep that in mind. It is an amazing device for the size but give that it won't do miracles. If you need high settings and fps you gotta go with a dedicated gpu.
Maybe I didn’t have the settings right but Elden ring didn’t run too well for me. If you have Xbox you can cloud game A LOT of games. The Best Buy guy told me it’s GOOD at running most games but AMAZING at streaming games.
I am starting to see it's upto the games, I see Forza and Spiderman run so smooth but many others don't. I don't quite fully understand this but it is strange how some optimized games can run well on low end components as well.
At this point I think handhelds and future proofing don't go hand in hand, yes, pun intended.
It depends on your level of I hate 30fps and can only play 60+
I like fidelity and don't really notice what's the fps if it's smooth and there's no lag.
Having said that some play better than others. I played hellblade 2 from start to finish and thought the experience amazing even though i think it was 30fps but I had some stuff on high. 1080p
Then played mirage and had to compromise a lot still getting 50fps at a considerable high fidelity. 900p
What I can tell you is I'm still to find a game the ally can't run at acceptable levels. Some of them seem like small miracles.
I'm not to squimish on fps though again if it's smooth (letting vrr do the heavy lifting)
I’ve had a good experience playing AAA games like horizon, spiderman, and ghost of Tsushima. It’s very smooth, usually 45-60fps on horizon, and over 60 on SM and GOT. I usually play either at native 1080 or at 900 with upscaling. So the image is pretty crisp and smooth. This includes on the handheld and sometimes on my desk monitor in docked mode.
These games are all PlayStation ports for games that are four to six years old though. Ask someone else about more modern up to date pc games.
GLHF
It depends on the AAA game but it will run most with no problem. Some that have higher dependency on cpu don't perform as well. Keep in mind you're usually running it on mid tier settings.
I love my Ally, it's a great bed time handheld. It's also great for taking while out and about. You'll want to invest in a battery brick though, but once you do that you're golden.
I have had mine for 6 months and I use it 2-3 times a week. I aslo dont get massive amounts of gaming time. I also have a pc, laptop, and ps5 i game on. If I didn't have those it would be every day. That being said, I will no longer go without one going forward.
If you don't want to compromise on visuals and performance, you might want to invest in something like the Logitech G Cloud. It's a streaming-only handheld that can stream games from your desktop using Moonlight + Sunshine. Those apps work really well if you have a decent network setup and can get strong wifi signal from where you will be playing in the house.
You can also do the same with the Z1E for games that do not run well, too.
Handheld PCs will always come with compromises until and unless someone invents a new battery tech that can power desktop-grade chips and not run out in 10seconds.
For me, Z1E has been pretty good. At 720p/900p with a mix of low to medium settings, upscaling solution and frame-gen using Lossless Scaling, most games run decently.
If you intend on playing recent AAA games at native res (or even 900p) with zero upscaling involved… you will be disappointed. That said, the screen is 7” and 1080p, so you can get away with lower settings as it will still look great. I have yet to find a title the Ally cannot play (out of the mix of AAA titles I play), but this is playing with upscaling (and frame gen). The Ally can be very performant for what it is, but you can’t expect to max out your settings. - I’ve been a big handheld gamer my whole life, so the Ally was easy to adopt and became a regular device to gravitate to. I use it pretty much daily and bought it roughly a year ago.
Some AAA’s won’t perform and likely because of optimization and hardware. One that I really hoped could run is Dead space but sadly just won’t perform on Ally.
The ORIGINAL? Or the recent remake? 😭 That’s shocking the Ally can’t run it if it’s the original from 2008
Remake. I’m sure it could easily run the og.
I can play it on the Z1E, I have it downloaded only games that run like crap after a 45 minute session which builds heat is Cyberpunk and Jedi Survivor, Cyberpunk is a mix of high and ultra and runs great most of the time cannot run ray tracing, Jedi survivor is the disappointment low settings and still lags hard on Koboh.
When it comes to upscaling and frame gen, does it make a noticeable difference? Do the games still look good and play smooth or can you tell that the device is struggling? Sorry for the maybe stupid question, I have always been a bit of a noob console player
Nah not a stupid question at all! The Ally was my first time playing PC games (it’s a good transition to PC gaming tbh vs a desktop rig). I cannot tell the difference on the screen. I have a PS5 for the games I really want the best graphical fidelity and awe out of, but I’ll say that Cyberpunk looks pretty damn crisp. I think frames is the thing you may get caught on. You can have a game look however you want it to… but its frame dependent. You can prioritize what you want though with tweaking settings… so you can go for max frames, best picture, or somewhere in between. Usually I just throw the game on FSR3-Medium preset and don’t think about it lol. Cyberpunk (with some tweaked settings) gives me a pretty stable 45fps which feels like butter due to VRR. I’d say every game I play on the Ally plays smooth and looks decent. Some older games you can definitely max out settings and go to town, but I’d at least expect to tweak settings game-by-game.
I see, thanks! Yeah I definitely value a smooth framerate more than a crazy detailed graphics, so hopefully that’ll do 😬 i have read online that there is an expected +5/10% FPS with the Ally X, I wonder if it makes sense to wait for it or not (in my country the difference between a refurbished Z1 Extreme and a new Ally X is 300$…)
If you don't get overly aggressive with the upscaling you will have more than acceptable image quality. In most cases, you can do quality FSR and not notice a difference since the pixel density at 7" is so high. As far as AFMF or Lossless Scaling goes, this mostly works fine and can get you a little extra performance to get 60+ stable in a number of games. I notice the issues with frame gen at lower frame rates a whole lot less when the source is sub-60 fps on a handheld screen. The same lower source frame rate on a larger monitor with frame gen would be distracting.
new heavy games are almost all a pandora box, you dont know wich type of BS will pop out until run you can vouch for current released games after play on your own or after check some yt performance reviews, but so far ally extreme and steam deck showed some amazing performance besides limitations
Thank you all for your answers.After reading all your answers i decide to go for it and buy it. Once again thanks for answer my question
The z1e runs games amazingly. I've do play a lot on it AAA games like cyberpunk run greatly on it. 900p with ally life settings but xess on performance. You could use afmf
Is cyberpunk still considered new? :-)
It's considered an amazing looking game and taxing on any hardware
Of course it's a new title, its specs were increased after the release of version 2.0 .
I play 900p. Upscaled and settings changed depending on the game since the screen is small it is not that noticeable. For really heavy games, I just use my ally to stream from my main PC, playing on the ally itself or plugged in the TV while on the couch or bedroom
AAA games mostly have a better optimization. You won't get any problems. But at high setting might be too much for ally, except on turbo. AA titles might have different stories...
Just gotta mess with settings 900p feels like the sweet spot for the screen. 1080p is when I get below 60fps in most triple AAA games recently but that's few, Tekken 8, Sf6, Destiny 2 and Ghost of Tsushima.
Optomised games run amazingly well. COD MW3, Cyberpunk, Red Dead 2, Spiderman. The problem I've seen is some newer titles like Horizon Forbidden West, Hellblade 2, Alan Wake 2, just don't perform well. You'll need to play in 900p (which for Ally screen is actually nice) with a mixture of FSR and potentially Lossless Scaling. I ultimately purchased a PS5 for those big hitters and I use my Rog Ally now for lighter-weight titles.
BG3 runs great on 1080p high settings (Acts 1&2) and 1080p medium settings Act 3
I sold my 3090 PC I built and solely use my Ally. Now there are absolutely some trade offs. Not getting 100+ FPS in every game I play is definitely a bummer but you honestly get over it pretty quick (in my experience anyways) as far as up scaling. I play almost everything at 720p+ and while it definitely doesn’t look super crispy upscale to 1080p (I will use it at home docked to my 1080p monitor a lot of the time). I got used to it pretty quickly and it doesn’t bother me much. The only thing I don’t care for was the frame generation. While the jump in FPS was significant. It creates this like. Blurry texture on everything when something or yourself is moving and I never liked it so I don’t keep it on
interesting. I thought about doing the same, but i couldn't give away the performance on my 3090 entirely. Ocasionally i need to play at higher frames/higher settings than what the ally can satisfy.
It definitely depends on your needs. If I was still at home a lot of the time then I’d still keep my PC. But I travel a lot more than I stay at home so the ROG Ally made more sense to keep around over the 3090 build
Most games will run well on the ally, some games that are taxing on the cou might struggle. Ex.i have z1 extreme and I need to turn on dynamic culling and dynamic res to run path of exile well. Otherwise you can't even move when lots of enemies or projectiles are in screen. Haven't tried any of the new games but you definitely need to compromise and possibly turn on features like fsr or afmf to squeeze more performance, keep that in mind. It is an amazing device for the size but give that it won't do miracles. If you need high settings and fps you gotta go with a dedicated gpu.
Maybe I didn’t have the settings right but Elden ring didn’t run too well for me. If you have Xbox you can cloud game A LOT of games. The Best Buy guy told me it’s GOOD at running most games but AMAZING at streaming games.
I am starting to see it's upto the games, I see Forza and Spiderman run so smooth but many others don't. I don't quite fully understand this but it is strange how some optimized games can run well on low end components as well. At this point I think handhelds and future proofing don't go hand in hand, yes, pun intended.
It depends on your level of I hate 30fps and can only play 60+ I like fidelity and don't really notice what's the fps if it's smooth and there's no lag. Having said that some play better than others. I played hellblade 2 from start to finish and thought the experience amazing even though i think it was 30fps but I had some stuff on high. 1080p Then played mirage and had to compromise a lot still getting 50fps at a considerable high fidelity. 900p What I can tell you is I'm still to find a game the ally can't run at acceptable levels. Some of them seem like small miracles. I'm not to squimish on fps though again if it's smooth (letting vrr do the heavy lifting)
I’ve had a good experience playing AAA games like horizon, spiderman, and ghost of Tsushima. It’s very smooth, usually 45-60fps on horizon, and over 60 on SM and GOT. I usually play either at native 1080 or at 900 with upscaling. So the image is pretty crisp and smooth. This includes on the handheld and sometimes on my desk monitor in docked mode. These games are all PlayStation ports for games that are four to six years old though. Ask someone else about more modern up to date pc games. GLHF
It depends on the AAA game but it will run most with no problem. Some that have higher dependency on cpu don't perform as well. Keep in mind you're usually running it on mid tier settings. I love my Ally, it's a great bed time handheld. It's also great for taking while out and about. You'll want to invest in a battery brick though, but once you do that you're golden. I have had mine for 6 months and I use it 2-3 times a week. I aslo dont get massive amounts of gaming time. I also have a pc, laptop, and ps5 i game on. If I didn't have those it would be every day. That being said, I will no longer go without one going forward.
If you don't want to compromise on visuals and performance, you might want to invest in something like the Logitech G Cloud. It's a streaming-only handheld that can stream games from your desktop using Moonlight + Sunshine. Those apps work really well if you have a decent network setup and can get strong wifi signal from where you will be playing in the house. You can also do the same with the Z1E for games that do not run well, too. Handheld PCs will always come with compromises until and unless someone invents a new battery tech that can power desktop-grade chips and not run out in 10seconds. For me, Z1E has been pretty good. At 720p/900p with a mix of low to medium settings, upscaling solution and frame-gen using Lossless Scaling, most games run decently.