That search icon on the taskbar is cortana. System wide search is the cortana engine. or perhaps the other way around cortana runs as an accessory to the system search engine.
One thing you didn't mention is that backup of certain "important" folders in the user profile to OneDrive is enabled by default, at least on Windows 11 Home. I learnt that the hard way when I was setting up a new Windows 11 installation and had to manually disable that, then manually move my files back.
@ technically no. It depends on games really. I don't have any that really depend on a keyboard and the ones I do are perfectly fine with popup keyboard.
Since you like disabling some services, look for hellzerg optimizer, it does allow for a quick switch on many services that are super unused, not to mention disabling telemetry, which should give some extra headroom. Not sure how much it impacts on games, I need to test that out, but you certainly see the difference on load times for windows and extra responsiveness.
@@joaquinlazo3142 I got rid of it traded for the legion go and then got rid of that also… they’re good but very limited and you got to be doing lotttttsssss every week or so lol I just rather take on my pc 🤣
I would love a more in depth guide. I just got mine after watching a ton of your videos among some others and deciding on the ally as a good cost to performance handheld with a nice screen.
Most of my first day of owning the ALLY has simply been installing the updates, I have fiber and just so many updates still. can only go so fast with the updates, then theres armory crate updates, windows updates, nvidia updates, asus updates, 2 bios updates. I did the main updates first, then disabled bitlocker and swapped out the drive for for a larger one. Cloned that drive, put it back in, then more updates essentially. pretty much done now.I have the xgmobile with the z13 s when one isnt docked, the other one can be. its pretty fun! One tip i do recommend, if you have a dock or the xgmobile, use it, so much easier with keyboard and mouse to setup your system and all your games and a full size monitor. it just made the process go so much better. No messing about with anything. once your undocked, you are good to go!
Hi Eta, I really appreciate your videos about the Rog ally. It would be great if you could make a video tutorial similar to this one on how to do Big Box setup on the Rog ally.
Thanks ETAPrime for the video. Would be definitely interested in an advanced tweak guide to maximize performance. Also, any issue on your end with the sd card slot as reported by othet users?
legit question, can this replace a gaming laptop? cos the only reason i have a laptop in the first place is because its "portable". I also have a desktop.
Great guide thank you please can you test more of Overwatch 2 performance when for example hooked up to a 4K screen monitor? As well as talk about generally using it as a laptop replacement?
Yeah see when I press that button it opens me up to the armory crate website not the app, and if I open any games through steam the buttons don’t work only touch screen
Forgot the microsd slot burning up from the fan right next to it. Had to return mine and don't plan on getting another until they do some hardware changes.
Exactly I returned my rog ally too and having to manually adjust a fan curve to avoid the system burning your micro sd is ridiculous asus needs to recall and release a refresh.
great vid. I picked up an Ally X Z1E 2.0 model on 8/14/24. On 9/21/24, I picked up an Ally Z1E open-box unit from Best Buy for half the price of new. This unit was blemish free, not a speck on it. Following your guide to remember the important things to configure. I want to point out that at 4:10 my Cortana did not have "uninstall" greyed out and actually let me uninstall her.
Any way you can try an EGPU other than the official ROG one? I bet I will get more performance out of the more expensive ROG one but it would be great to see how this thing handles a graphics card for a little extra 120 fps 1080p performance if you have an extra graphics card laying around.
unfortunately not. The USB C port isn't cable of supporting regular external gpus. Asus most likely wanted to lock that down, by putting their own proprietary connector for external gpu.
After a lot of research between this and the steam deck OLED i decided to go with the Ally since they were the same price for me and I wanted the better performence and not be limited to what I can play on it. Should get mine in a few days from Jb Hifi. This video will come in handy when I get it!.
I just got mine. And I am really struggling getting it to work properly. I have been trying to play Battlefront 2 (classic) from steam and I can’t seem to get it to work. The buttons aren’t mapped properly. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing wrong
Could you do one for external controllers. It’s a nightmare. I basically want the ROG to use it plugged in a TV with controllers. And it’s so hard. I’m using a wireless ps4 controller. I managed it to work with steam but that’s it. And every time I change the game it disconnects. I wanted to use it with emulators like yuzu and it just doesn’t work. Thanks a lot.
Just got my ally. Loving it so far. So far about 15w gives me about an hour and a half of battery in performance mode. I did go in and disable the aggressive profile settings on the cpu in all modes and it significantly dropped the cpu temps seeing how most titles don’t use cpu much. But its amazing. I may even try out that 18w profile you mentioned. Any other suggestions on increasing battery life. I will say it doesn’t perform as good as the deck does at 10w albeit I was running 1080p. Awesome video love your vibe and content. Keep up the great work. Do you prefer this or your steam deck. I also have a switch Oled so I don’t think I need a steam deck. I just sold my high end gaming laptop as I don’t use it often because I have a full desktop gaming pc with my decent 3080 rig and ps5. I travel a bit and bring Ming my laptop, controller headset cooling pad is just cumbersome when traveling for work which is often. I know it won’t get anywhere near the performance of my 3070ti laptop but I don’t really need all that when traveling.
Would you be able to revisit ChimeraOS on the Ally? They have a guide with fixes in progress provided specifically for the Ally with it, and it'd be great to visually see those in action
5:20 everytime I boot up the Armoury Crate, for a split second the timing would show 12.00AMAM just like this video then switching to the actual timing, not sure if this is a bug or something, and even after I've did a soft reset on the device, this still happens intermittently, anyone else noticed or experienced this?
Rewatch the video because mine has arrived. How can I turn off lock? I seem to be able to choose either PIN or Fingerprint. I want to remove the lock itself.
lol you could have done this yesterday, when i picked 1 up!!! loving it so far, and think it will replace my steam deck which i have adored since i got!!
Here's a question for some people more knowledgeable than Asus' technical support, apparently - I recently had to return my Ally because it had developed an extreme heat spike problem that made it unusable. At the time, I was using an aftermarket Sabrent Rocket SSD in place of the factory one. I've now gotten a new replacement Ally and haven't turned it on for the first time yet. Would it be detrimental to the device if I immediately swapped out the factory SSD and replaced it with the Sabrent that already has Windows and all necessary software installed and initialized on it? Or should I go through the normal out-of-box setup procedure with the stock SSD first and then swap them out?
I've always wondered if it'll play mp4, mp3, and pdf files via Windows Media Player since it runs on Windows, can someone confirm this for me? I plan on getting this someday and use it as a media hub for watching movies/TV, listening to music, and reading comics and would love to do all of this on the go but I would like to know before I make the whole $700 commitment 😅😅😅
I’ve had to cloud restore my asus like 6 times and it’s said multiple times my sad card has a error and disconnected it even though it’s never had an issue before. Any suggestions for me? My asus hasn’t been modded at all and is updated
I just got the ally and I’ve never had a pc I’ve only been a console gamer and Ive got everything figured out except downloading the games I want and actually playing them some games are saying I need a keyboard and I don’t know how to switch it to let me use the buttons on the ally my steam account also looks different I can’t find gta or helldivers or any of the popular games I’d like to play
I replaced the default shell which is explorer.exe with steam.exe so that when it boots it goes straight into steam using windows autologin. It gives a much better console experience. None of the normal windows stuff like the taskbar , search , notifications, desktop wallpapers/icons are present. I find that all of those things create regular interruptions which can become annoying. I also saved the registry entries to be able to switch back to explorer.exe when i need to. Only drawback is the volume rocker does not register but you can still set the volume using the button to change operation mode.
The only issue I have and it's been a long time issue. I can't move using the left stick. I can use the stick for other things and every other button I think works I just can't move or walk in a game
IN DEPTH TWEAKING GUIDE WOULD BE AWESOME! Just got this yesterday and in turbo mode playing 7 days to die the temp is steady 95c, my sd card stopped working after playing for about 20 minutes at this temp. I looked online and couldnt find any answers on why it runs so hot.
Hello ETA prime...I was your viewer since u started making raspberry pi content...I loved those videos so much...These videos are too awesome..but if you can make raspberry pi videos I would be happy 😄
I don't get. So, i have The Witcher Wild Hunt of example on my rog laptop, & when i started the Ally, it already showed all my games in steam, but i don't see an option to install, it just says the option "Stream" in a green box. What's the dealio? ? So confused.
I had the steam deck last year and it was fun an all but this right here is gonna be way better since its windows based and dont gotta do some workaround for certain games
How to use gamepad layout from steam, i mean we just copy the layout from steam community and paste it to rog ally layout, cause set 1 by 1 takes so much time
Control mode gamepad makes a big difference in being able to play some games. If let auto, the computer can’t decide between mouse and keyboard or controller and it doesn’t work. Changing it to controller will make the games work.
disabling UAC is not recommendation, since UAC prevent's any un-aware file from executing on it's own without your aknowledge, so if for example an infected file get's into the device/pc and tries to launch itself, then this UAC will prevent it from starting since it needs your approval. So you will get pop-up and can from there reject it so it cannot start on it's own.
Totally agreed, but if you plan on using the Rog ally purely for gaming then it’s unnecessary since the only things that’ll ever be installed is video games
When I try to install steam for the first time I get stuck on screen that asks for choose your network, Bluetooth or proxy. I can’t select anything. Please assist
I have had my Ally for over 2 weeks now and I'm still watching this.
@@volcalstone sameskiiii
@@volcalstone skill issue
@@volcalstone is it worth enough ?
Thanks so much for taking the time to run through the creation of a profile. It’s nice to see your settings as a starting point.
A more in depth setup/tweaks guide would be awesome. I would love to be able to squeeze more battery life and performance out of mine.
You’re right, i was extremely shocked how light it was, especially compared to the steam deck, and the steam deck isn’t even that heavy
Same here. I kinda wish it had a bit more weight to it.
Loving mine so far but I would love an even bigger and better tweaking guide. Looking forward to trying out my new 18 watt performance mode!
so glad you made this vid i havent touched a pc since 2005 i was lost untill i saw this vid thanks
Just got mine, and this video was very helpful, an in-depth tweaking guide would be awesome. Thanks.
❤ thank you so much for this guide, I'm getting my Asus ROG ally in a few days can't wait to use it I will be using this guide once I have it
Did you get it yet? Getting mine in a few days!
That search icon on the taskbar is cortana. System wide search is the cortana engine. or perhaps the other way around cortana runs as an accessory to the system search engine.
Do an in-depth guide for battery and performance optimization please. Very interested in this.
You can also adjust VRam from Operating Mode-> GPU Settings in Armory Crate
This! 4GB to 8.
@@chunkylover5367 no!
Thanks for this ETA! I would love a more in depth tweaking guide, and a Launchbox/Bigbox guide.
One thing you didn't mention is that backup of certain "important" folders in the user profile to OneDrive is enabled by default, at least on Windows 11 Home. I learnt that the hard way when I was setting up a new Windows 11 installation and had to manually disable that, then manually move my files back.
I found that out the hard way too. Can't get away from windows 11's quirks I suppose.
How do you undo this? My desktop has been messed up for awhile. Onedrive makes things so complicated.
I just got my 3 days ago and loving it and I've been looking at guides on how to make even more 9f a beast than it already is. Thanks for this!
@@EliKat94 do u need a keyboard?
@
technically no. It depends on games really. I don't have any that really depend on a keyboard and the ones I do are perfectly fine with popup keyboard.
Best PC handheld as of now! 😎😎
Yea, agree. Definitely the best Windows handheld.
Really?
Love it!! Impatient people will not like the device tho 😂
Man this handheld is so hot it's literally frying your MicroSD card, which is a big yikes and need to be fixed 😐
You mean most overrated?😂 ally copium😂
Since you like disabling some services, look for hellzerg optimizer, it does allow for a quick switch on many services that are super unused, not to mention disabling telemetry, which should give some extra headroom. Not sure how much it impacts on games, I need to test that out, but you certainly see the difference on load times for windows and extra responsiveness.
I just got this open box for such good price at Best Buy and this video helping a lot !!
how has it been, i might get one?
@@joaquinlazo3142 I got rid of it traded for the legion go and then got rid of that also… they’re good but very limited and you got to be doing lotttttsssss every week or so lol I just rather take on my pc 🤣
Yes, we want an in dept review about setting up. Good job btw!
Best guide! So clear and easy to follow. Really appreciate it!
What a fantastic and informative, clearly described video! Thanks so much!
Best review and walk through of asus rog ally on UA-cam thank you ❤❤❤
Thanks for posting this video. Very helpful in getting my new rog ally setup.
I would love a more in depth guide. I just got mine after watching a ton of your videos among some others and deciding on the ally as a good cost to performance handheld with a nice screen.
Thank You! Waiting for more tweaks!!!
Most of my first day of owning the ALLY has simply been installing the updates, I have fiber and just so many updates still. can only go so fast with the updates, then theres armory crate updates, windows updates, nvidia updates, asus updates, 2 bios updates. I did the main updates first, then disabled bitlocker and swapped out the drive for for a larger one. Cloned that drive, put it back in, then more updates essentially. pretty much done now.I have the xgmobile with the z13 s when one isnt docked, the other one can be. its pretty fun!
One tip i do recommend, if you have a dock or the xgmobile, use it, so much easier with keyboard and mouse to setup your system and all your games and a full size monitor. it just made the process go so much better. No messing about with anything. once your undocked, you are good to go!
Hi Eta, I really appreciate your videos about the Rog ally. It would be great if you could make a video tutorial similar to this one on how to do Big Box setup on the Rog ally.
Just put it on a micro sd and it will work on all windows systems 👍
Cheers for the startup tips! Would love to see more ALLY videos :)
Just got mine today, thank you for the info. Very helpful!
Thanks ETAPrime for the video. Would be definitely interested in an advanced tweak guide to maximize performance. Also, any issue on your end with the sd card slot as reported by othet users?
legit question, can this replace a gaming laptop? cos the only reason i have a laptop in the first place is because its "portable". I also have a desktop.
Great guide thank you please can you test more of Overwatch 2 performance when for example hooked up to a 4K screen monitor? As well as talk about generally using it as a laptop replacement?
Yeah see when I press that button it opens me up to the armory crate website not the app, and if I open any games through steam the buttons don’t work only touch screen
thank you so much for the UAC tip im subbing asap
Ally > Deck anydays ❤
Forgot the microsd slot burning up from the fan right next to it. Had to return mine and don't plan on getting another until they do some hardware changes.
Exactly I returned my rog ally too and having to manually adjust a fan curve to avoid the system burning your micro sd is ridiculous asus needs to recall and release a refresh.
@izayaface501young thankfully it didn't kill my microsd card and I can still use it in my phone, but it killed the port.
@@jimmymyers same I’m getting a steamdeck and am gonna use my micro sd with that instead
@izayaface501young I was trying to sell my Deck after I bought the Ally but luckily I was unable to and I still have something portable that's decent
Just got it yesterday on sale. Still doing updates lol. Updated windows and now currently updating armory
great vid. I picked up an Ally X Z1E 2.0 model on 8/14/24. On 9/21/24, I picked up an Ally Z1E open-box unit from Best Buy for half the price of new. This unit was blemish free, not a speck on it. Following your guide to remember the important things to configure. I want to point out that at 4:10 my Cortana did not have "uninstall" greyed out and actually let me uninstall her.
Just ordered mine
I got mine yesterday 😭😭 best thing I’ve ever bought beside the WII U
@@night_blade3 Yup im using mine right now, the WII U is hard to beat 😂😂
This helped a TON! Thank you for sharing 🙏🏽
Would love to see a video of some detailed tweaks you’d recommend to get just that little bit more out of this device!
I purchased the Rog ally with a 2tb ssd, can I skip the initial setup and just install the ssd out of the box?
Crazy how much you can do with this thing!
Good investment!
Can you please make a video on setup guide for “Top Spin 4” on this Asus Rog Ally
Any way you can try an EGPU other than the official ROG one? I bet I will get more performance out of the more expensive ROG one but it would be great to see how this thing handles a graphics card for a little extra 120 fps 1080p performance if you have an extra graphics card laying around.
unfortunately not. The USB C port isn't cable of supporting regular external gpus. Asus most likely wanted to lock that down, by putting their own proprietary connector for external gpu.
After a lot of research between this and the steam deck OLED i decided to go with the Ally since they were the same price for me and I wanted the better performence and not be limited to what I can play on it. Should get mine in a few days from Jb Hifi. This video will come in handy when I get it!.
Isn't disabling the UAC a big cybersecurity concern?
I just got mine. And I am really struggling getting it to work properly. I have been trying to play Battlefront 2 (classic) from steam and I can’t seem to get it to work. The buttons aren’t mapped properly. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing wrong
Hubby bought me one this morning that was on sale 🥰
Contemplating on if I should get this or get a Steam Deck again
How about a guide on performance tweaking on the more popular games/ emulation configuration.
Could you do one for external controllers. It’s a nightmare. I basically want the ROG to use it plugged in a TV with controllers. And it’s so hard. I’m using a wireless ps4 controller. I managed it to work with steam but that’s it. And every time I change the game it disconnects. I wanted to use it with emulators like yuzu and it just doesn’t work. Thanks a lot.
Use an Xbox controller
@@Moulds45 no
@@EGMontesano 😂
I would definitely like a more in depth video, I got the rog ally for the first time and I want to get the best out of it 😊
Just got my ally. Loving it so far. So far about 15w gives me about an hour and a half of battery in performance mode. I did go in and disable the aggressive profile settings on the cpu in all modes and it significantly dropped the cpu temps seeing how most titles don’t use cpu much. But its amazing. I may even try out that 18w profile you mentioned. Any other suggestions on increasing battery life. I will say it doesn’t perform as good as the deck does at 10w albeit I was running 1080p. Awesome video love your vibe and content. Keep up the great work. Do you prefer this or your steam deck. I also have a switch Oled so I don’t think I need a steam deck. I just sold my high end gaming laptop as I don’t use it often because I have a full desktop gaming pc with my decent 3080 rig and ps5. I travel a bit and bring Ming my laptop, controller headset cooling pad is just cumbersome when traveling for work which is often. I know it won’t get anywhere near the performance of my 3070ti laptop but I don’t really need all that when traveling.
Thanks for the guide 👌👍
This might be new for 2024, but during cloud restore once you use your MS account it starts to sync everything from your ONE drive and other stuff.
love my Ally, i have decided i will keep it and sell my steam deck. I shall also be upgrading my SSD over the next few days to a 1TB
Mines come Wednesday cant wait
Hello, I’m need help, I've activated everything, but the navigation buttons don't work, including armory create
Would you be able to revisit ChimeraOS on the Ally? They have a guide with fixes in progress provided specifically for the Ally with it, and it'd be great to visually see those in action
5:20 everytime I boot up the Armoury Crate, for a split second the timing would show 12.00AMAM just like this video then switching to the actual timing, not sure if this is a bug or something, and even after I've did a soft reset on the device, this still happens intermittently, anyone else noticed or experienced this?
picking mine up from target today black friday crack friday deal😊
Such a useful video!
Brilliant. Just what I needed. Except it messed up my pin and now I can't use the machine.
in-depth guide on not to fry the microSD please.
Rewatch the video because mine has arrived. How can I turn off lock? I seem to be able to choose either PIN or Fingerprint. I want to remove the lock itself.
lol you could have done this yesterday, when i picked 1 up!!! loving it so far, and think it will replace my steam deck which i have adored since i got!!
Thanks for this video much 👍
Here's a question for some people more knowledgeable than Asus' technical support, apparently - I recently had to return my Ally because it had developed an extreme heat spike problem that made it unusable. At the time, I was using an aftermarket Sabrent Rocket SSD in place of the factory one. I've now gotten a new replacement Ally and haven't turned it on for the first time yet. Would it be detrimental to the device if I immediately swapped out the factory SSD and replaced it with the Sabrent that already has Windows and all necessary software installed and initialized on it? Or should I go through the normal out-of-box setup procedure with the stock SSD first and then swap them out?
What do you think lol..
Follow your gut 10 times out of 10 and you'll stay out of trouble ten times out of ten
@@reececrawford1688 Thank you. Much helpful, such appreciated. 😒
my asus does not go into big picture when lauching from Crate, have to manually do this? how can i get this to do auto
I've always wondered if it'll play mp4, mp3, and pdf files via Windows Media Player since it runs on Windows, can someone confirm this for me? I plan on getting this someday and use it as a media hub for watching movies/TV, listening to music, and reading comics and would love to do all of this on the go but I would like to know before I make the whole $700 commitment 😅😅😅
My ROG Ally at 1:45 Wifi Off and can't go to next set...
I’ve had to cloud restore my asus like 6 times and it’s said multiple times my sad card has a error and disconnected it even though it’s never had an issue before. Any suggestions for me? My asus hasn’t been modded at all and is updated
I just got the ally and I’ve never had a pc I’ve only been a console gamer and Ive got everything figured out except downloading the games I want and actually playing them some games are saying I need a keyboard and I don’t know how to switch it to let me use the buttons on the ally my steam account also looks different I can’t find gta or helldivers or any of the popular games I’d like to play
Armory crate, microsoft store apps are not opening on my new ally I got yesterday..😢
Hell yes just picked it up and would love a guide with more tweaking. Gonna sell my Alienware X17 and make this my do it all pc with a docking setup.
How’s it going with this setup?
@@seabass22 unfortunately my ally was stolen so waiting for ally 2
@@yummiermussel5331 dang that’s unfortunate
@@seabass22 yes and asus will NOT help you track it or get it back so thieves just have to switch drives and thats it. Pretty sad but lesson learned.
Where did you order from??@@yummiermussel5331
ETA the goat
Awesome video. Thanks
I replaced the default shell which is explorer.exe with steam.exe so that when it boots it goes straight into steam using windows autologin. It gives a much better console experience. None of the normal windows stuff like the taskbar , search , notifications, desktop wallpapers/icons are present. I find that all of those things create regular interruptions which can become annoying. I also saved the registry entries to be able to switch back to explorer.exe when i need to. Only drawback is the volume rocker does not register but you can still set the volume using the button to change operation mode.
The only issue I have and it's been a long time issue. I can't move using the left stick. I can use the stick for other things and every other button I think works I just can't move or walk in a game
I got a rog ally just recently and for some reason only my left stick rgb is working but the pad isn't working at all
Arrives tomorrow!
IN DEPTH TWEAKING GUIDE WOULD BE AWESOME! Just got this yesterday and in turbo mode playing 7 days to die the temp is steady 95c, my sd card stopped working after playing for about 20 minutes at this temp. I looked online and couldnt find any answers on why it runs so hot.
Great set-up guide. Could you perhaps do a set-up guide on how to play games from Playstation plus and blizzard?
Great video! Tweaking guide next please!
Hello ETA prime...I was your viewer since u started making raspberry pi content...I loved those videos so much...These videos are too awesome..but if you can make raspberry pi videos I would be happy 😄
I don't get. So, i have The Witcher Wild Hunt of example on my rog laptop, & when i started the Ally, it already showed all my games in steam, but i don't see an option to install, it just says the option "Stream" in a green box. What's the dealio? ? So confused.
I had the steam deck last year and it was fun an all but this right here is gonna be way better since its windows based and dont gotta do some workaround for certain games
How do I set the control for steam games?
How to use gamepad layout from steam, i mean we just copy the layout from steam community and paste it to rog ally layout, cause set 1 by 1 takes so much time
Control mode gamepad makes a big difference in being able to play some games. If let auto, the computer can’t decide between mouse and keyboard or controller and it doesn’t work. Changing it to controller will make the games work.
Just brought mine yesterday
Quick and easy, thanks
Thank you for this video please could you do the tweaking video with fan curves to stop the melting sd cards 😊
disabling UAC is not recommendation, since UAC prevent's any un-aware file from executing on it's own without your aknowledge, so if for example an infected file get's into the device/pc and tries to launch itself, then this UAC will prevent it from starting since it needs your approval. So you will get pop-up and can from there reject it so it cannot start on it's own.
I agree
Totally agreed, but if you plan on using the Rog ally purely for gaming then it’s unnecessary since the only things that’ll ever be installed is video games
I truly appreciate your videos/tutorials Thank You So Much 🫡🥃
I am a new ally owner I watched your video for your setup and I appreciate it and help me out a lot
I would like more of in-depth video please.
When I try to install steam for the first time I get stuck on screen that asks for choose your network, Bluetooth or proxy. I can’t select anything. Please assist
Does the device come with the correct drivers? Can we just start playing without any problems?
Can you show us what would happen if you try to do a live stream simultaneously while playing a game on the rog ally?