A new update for the ROG Xbox Ally series of handheld PCs is rolling out, Xbox announced. It adds one new handy feature as well as expected software fixes and improvements.
The new feature is Default Game Profile. With this, the ROG Xbox Ally (and ROG Xbox Ally X) will automatically adjust its performance settings to for the best balance in frame rate and power consumption. The idea is that you can get the most optimal gameplay experience without having to fiddle with these settings yourself.
The way the profiles are designed is that they prioritise hitting a target FPS, and will use up more power (and use up more battery) to hit that. If it can hit more than the target FPS, it will use less power and as such, uses less battery charge.
These are hand-crafted settings that works only per-game and is only on when it’s running on battery. It can also be toggled off, if you wish.
For now, Default Game Profiles are supported by the following Xbox first-party games (including titles from Activision and Bethesda):
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
- Call of Duty: Warzone
- DOOM Eternal
- DOOM: The Dark Ages
- Forza Horizon 5
- Gears 5
- Gears of War: Reloaded
- Gears Tactics
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Minecraft
- Sea of Thieves
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4
If the game supports Default Game Profiles, you will see an option right on top of the Armoury Crate Command Center Game Bar widget (hit the button shortcut above the View button on the Ally).
On top of that, the new update features a long list of improvements that can be found here. These updates are both for the Xbox App on PC, the Xbox Game Bar (yes, these are two separate apps) as well as for the Armoury Crate SE and AMD drivers.
You can check out our review of the ROG Xbox Ally here.