ROG Ally's latest update improves charging, performance on battery!

Another day, another update for the ROG Ally. The ROG Ally is somewhat of an experimental product for the Republic of Gamers, but it seems to be turning out well for them. As the first handheld device running Windows for ROG, there are definitely still some bugs here and there, but luckily ROG seems quite consistent with their updates. The upcoming updates seems to be pretty minor, coming with refinements for the user experience, rather than major bug fixes.

BIOS 323 and MCU 310 updates set to arrive today

According to a leak on Reddit, the ROG Ally is expected to receive several updates today, with the two main ones being a new BIOS version 323 and MCU version 310. Most of the dealbreaker flaws have been addressed — aside from the still comically short battery life — so these seem like more of a quality-of-life updates. In any case, here’s what to expect from the updates:

MCU 310 on 7/21/23 through MyASUS

New feature: added Hold to repeat (Turbo) support for ABXY, joystick click, LB, RB, M1, M2 and the D-Pad in the GameProfile.
UX improvement: Assigned the LB key to navigate tabs in the BIOS.
UX improvement: Default deadzone has been changed to 6% in Desktop mode when the joystick is used as a mouse pointer.
Bug fix: Fixed a bug where in Gamepad mode and the device is on battery, the joystick RGB lighting won’t resume after 1 minute idle.
Bug fix: Fixed a bug where pressing M1 or M2 would cancel inputs from any other buttons if pressed together.

BIOS 323 on 7/21/23 through MyASUS

UX improvement: Added 30W support when plugging in 65W or higher wattage adapters.
UX improvement: Update PD charger pop-up notification message (Requires Throttle Monitor Merge Module plugin update available through Armoury Crate SE).
UX improvement: Modified minimum backlight value from 25nits to 10nits.
UX improvement: After updating the BIOS, the VRAM setting will keep its previous value.
UX improvement: Eliminated the performance gap between AC and DC in Performance mode.

One of the most exciting improvements is probably the fact that the ROG Ally will support the “30W Turbo” mode on more chargers, which is something that was bugging a lot of users. Hopefully this takes out the guesswork on whether a certain fast charger will support the maximum potential of the ROG Ally. And just FYI, the Rocoren 140W GaN Fast Charger definitely supports the full 30W Turbo mode. I personally confirmed this.

On that topic, the performance gap between AC and DC in Performance mode is something I never personally experienced, but I guess it’s nice to know that we will be getting more consistent performance regardless whether we are plugged in. I have played my fair share of Witcher 3 in Performance mode which caps the TDP to 15W, and I think it works quite well. Cyberpunk 2077 generally requires a bit more grunt though, and I also can’t really play an FPS with controllers.

With the first batch quickly selling out in Malaysia — the first 100 was gone in merely 7 minutes — I do believe that there’s quite a bit of potential to the ROG Ally. I look forward to more updates, and hopefully longer battery life on the ROG Ally, although I somewhat doubt that’s possible when we are dealing with a rather tiny 40Wh battery here. But a man can dream.