ROG Xbox Ally X： Best Tips and Settings to Change!

The Xbox ROG Ally X is one of the hottest gaming handhelds that you can buy right now. So if you're considering picking one up or you just got one, in this episode of Setup Essentials I'm taking you through all the new hardware and software upgrades and some really, really important gaming features and settings that you'll want to know to get the most out of your new device. By the way, in this video I'm using the ROG Xbox Ally X, the more powerful version, but this guide still applies to the base ROG Xbox Ally. Either way, if you're still trying to decide between the two and you haven't seen our full review yet, we strongly recommend the more powerful Xbox Ally X for its higher performance, better battery life, as well as higher storage. Whichever one you own, you should know that both of these devices are still Windows handhelds at the end of the day, but they still open the new Xbox full screen experience out of the box, which lets you access your games and game settings much more easily. Think of this as a gaming focus hub that helps you avoid many of the annoyances with Windows 11, especially poor touch controls that aren't optimized for smaller screens like the 7-inch display. It also turns off many of the usual Windows bloat processes that are happening in the background that are known for eating up precious system resources when all you really want to do is play your dang game. Some of our tests have shown that the Xbox full screen experience can actually help the ROG Ally X sometimes get about two to five extra frames per second in certain games. Is that life-changing? Maybe not, but who's going to say no to free performance? All right, so once you finish the initial setup process, you'll be loaded into the new Xbox full screen experience. And then by default now, the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X will boot into this mode. So let's get a little bit more familiar with it. Now, if you're coming from an Xbox console or you've used the Xbox app on PC recently, the layout here should look pretty similar. You can navigate using the physical controls, but I find touch to be a lot easier. The homepage will show you the most recently played games at the top. Below it, you'll see a list of featured games, a list like handheld optimized titles. There's a search bar at the top that when opened up will also show you what games are trending if you need a little inspiration. On the left column, you'll find shortcuts for Game Pass, Microsoft's Netflix-like subscription for over 400 plus games, which you can download and stream for one monthly fee. But more on that in a little bit. Below that, you'll find the library shortcut, which shows you a list of games that you already have locally installed, are available to install, or that you can stream from the cloud. From the screen, if you click on the My Apps tab, you'll find other game stores like Epic and Steam, and I'll walk you through how to use those as well. But back on the left, the cloud shortcut shows you 100 plus console games that you can also stream over the internet with no download required, and this is included with all Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. The bag shortcut is the Xbox Store page, where you can buy new games or browse the catalog of free ones. If you're subscribed to Xbox Game Pass like I am, you'll notice that many of these games are already included with your membership or are on sale. Then we find three small icons at the bottom. The bell shows you your notifications, such as updates and new game announcements. The people one are for your Xbox friends and chats. And the last one, believe it or not, this is supposed to look like an Xbox. Here you can access your real Xbox if you own one, and you want to stream games directly from your home console. And then finally, at the very bottom, you'll see your install and update queue. There's a lot to like with the new Xbox full screen experience, and while this is debuting on the Xbox ROG Ally, it is not an exclusive feature. Microsoft has already announced that they'll officially be rolling out this feature to more handhelds with future Windows 11 updates, which I think is great news. But if one of the main reasons that you wanted to buy or upgrade to the ROG Xbox Ally is that you might not necessarily need to. And speaking of great news, we have lots of other awesome gaming content and setup essential guides taking you through all the new features and settings on the tech that you love. So be sure to stay subscribed for Windows Drop. Sticking with the full screen experience, it also has its own built-in multitasking with a quick game and app switcher that you can access by swiping from the bottom of your screen or long pressing on the Xbox app from the left, which will open the app switcher view. You can now cycle between your open apps and games and use a touchscreen to click on the one that you want, or you can select or close them using the A or X buttons. At the bottom, you'll also notice a shortcut to enter the Windows desktop. You'll see a notification recommending that you use a mouse or keyboard here because the experience is not optimized for touchscreens, believe me. Remember, this is still a Windows device and you can use this like a computer if you ever need, but it is a good idea to use your peripherals if you respect your sanity. In here, you'll get the usual Windows 11 experience, which you might already be familiar with, which has your icons on your desktop, the start menu, and access to all your other Windows 11 apps and folders, which aren't available through the Xbox full screen experience. Once you're done, you have a couple ways to get back into the Xbox full screen experience. From the taskbar at the bottom, which you may need to swipe up to show if it's disappeared, you should see the Xbox icon. You can click this to open it up. You can also press the Xbox button and select it from the quick shortcuts there. Now that we're in the Xbox app, you'll probably notice, however, that there's a new icon on the top right of your screen for Xbox full screen. When you click on it, you'll be asked how you want to open it. Select start now to quickly go to the full screen experience. But because we just accessed that Windows 11 desktop, all those extra processes and bloat are now running in the background of our device, and it could take a hit to performance and battery efficiency over time. So if we want to take advantage of the more streamlined Xbox full screen experience that we began the video with, we now have to completely restart the device so that it boots straight into the experience without the additional desktop running in the background. Honestly, it's kind of lame that you have to completely restart the device each time. But to be fair, most people probably won't be jumping back and forth as much. And I bet good money. We might even see a software update in the future, which makes this process a little easier. All right, before getting into your games, which I know you're excited for, let me quickly share a few other really important functions and settings that you'll need to know on the ROG Xbox Ally. Pressing the Xbox button once opens the game bar. This is a quick menu widget interface to access some important features. The homepage that you start in shows your most recently played games and opened apps. Using the right and left buttons or using touch controls, you can navigate to the other pages. The one on the right has quick settings, including volume, brightness, Wi-Fi and battery, as well as more advanced settings available at the bottom. The next page has your Xbox friends and your chats. Next is the audio mixer. If you want to control volume for individual apps or switch your output device. Capture is where you can take screenshots or screen recordings. Then there's the performance widget to see your system resources. There are also a few other tabs that you'll find to the right, but they're mostly for customizing things a little bit more, so you don't need to worry about them as much. Now, you may have noticed that I skipped over the very first tab. Actually, if we press the ROG Armory crate button here, this opens what they call the command center. Here we find some really important settings. Operating mode changes the power of the device with silent drawing the least amount of power, giving you longer battery endurance. This is fine if you're playing less demanding games and you want the best battery life. When you're on battery, the max power mode that you can get is 25 watts. But actually, if you plug this into a charger, you can unlock its full 35 watt mode for even more performance. Just make sure you're using a 65 watt or faster charger to support this. I also found it's useful to add a couple other quick access control modes for customizing and calibrating the lighting effects and brightness of your joysticks, as well as a pop-up keyboard for the times when it doesn't want to automatically open. Now, even though most things are going to be a bit more touch optimized in this experience, there's still a good chance that you'll run into apps or games where you'll need to access the onscreen keyboard on the ROG Xbox Ally. In addition to using the command center method that I just showed, you can also press the right back paddle and the D up in order to open it. Now you can type in whatever you need and then close up the keyboard when you're done. This is the number one setting that you need to change on the ROG Xbox Ally. By default, that power button at the top will fully turn off the device. Why would they do that? I can't tell you the amount of times that I've accidentally shut this off mid-game when all I really wanted to do was put this to sleep. So if you're like me, you probably would prefer if this was set to a sleep mode. So here's how to change that. Open game bar, settings, window settings, power and battery, power button controls, and set both the plugged in and on battery settings to sleep or hibernate. Now you can quickly suspend the device and resume your games from the power button. It's absolutely crazy that this is not the default setting, but now you know. But speaking of bugs, the ROG Xbox Ally is still a pretty new device and it's consistently getting better, but it does still occasionally have some issues. And you want to definitely make sure that you've got the latest software running. So here's how to update the ROG Xbox Ally. For your Windows 11 updates, open game bar, settings, more settings, open Windows settings, Windows update, install all the updates and restart the device when prompted. In addition to this, though, there are also driver and component updates, which you might only find in the Armory Crate app. And even though this device is only a few weeks old, a number of updates have fixed annoying bugs and made us feel even quicker and more responsive. So don't forget to check on these periodically. But now that I've gone over all these important settings, let's get into the games. There is a lot of controversy over whether or not this is a true Xbox. So what games can you play on the ROG Xbox Ally? For starters, this does not play Xbox games. This is a PC and it plays PC games. The good news is that many Xbox games, especially newer ones, are also on PC, but not all of them. So make sure you check compatibility first, which you can do by opening any game in the Xbox store, scrolling down to the playable on section, which shows you what devices it's compatible on. You'll find a lot of the big name games like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and Forza. Keep in mind that most of the Xbox games you won't be playing on the Xbox Ally X are usually older Xbox titles, including some Gears of War sequels, the Fable trilogy and also Halo 5. But let me know what games you're playing most and if they're compatible on the ROG Xbox Ally or if you feel like something's missing out. Tied in with that, there's Xbox Play Anywhere. Xbox Play Anywhere is both a godsend and a curse. Here's why. There are over a thousand games in this catalog, which you only have to buy once digitally from the Xbox store, and that lets you play on all Xbox consoles, PCs and handhelds at no additional cost. The progress goes with you, so you can pick up where you left off on one device and continue it on another. If you ask me, this is pretty great, but there are some important caveats. No, Xbox Play Anywhere does not apply to physically purchased games. It is only for digital copies that you buy from the Xbox store. There are also a number of games that, while available on both the Xbox and PC version of the Xbox store, are not part of the Xbox Play Anywhere catalog, and that includes big titles like Final Fantasy 15. You can scroll to the details of any game in the Xbox store to see if it is an Xbox Play Anywhere title. Don't get me wrong, Xbox Play Anywhere is still an awesome deal, and it keeps adding new titles all the time, but you should always double check before you buy your next game to make sure it's compatible with your device. But the ROG Xbox Ally X isn't just limited to games from the Xbox store. You can find the supported stores in Library, My Apps. The new Xbox full screen experience makes things even easier, as you'll be able to download and launch most popular game storefronts, including Battle.net, Epic Games, GOG, Steam, and Ubisoft right from the library page without needing to switch to the Windows 11 desktop. For the first time opening them, you will need to download, install, and log in, but afterwards you should be able to quickly access your library of games or even purchase new ones from those stores. You can install PC games just like you would on any other Windows device. Sometimes these stores have better sales, free game promos, or for example like Batman Arkham Knight, some games that you can't even buy from the Xbox store. So if a game's not available in one store, be sure to check the others because you might find it or even a better deal. And here's what's really cool. Once you install those games from those stores, you'll be able to find them along with your other games in the Xbox game library. They'll import with their game icons and show you what store you downloaded them from. Granted, the game cards from other stores don't look quite as pretty as the Xbox ones, but you can launch into these games directly and start playing right away. But let me know what you think of the new game library. Even though the Xbox Ally X is a PC and can't natively play every Xbox game, Xbox Game Pass subscribers can still access console exclusives like UFC 5 and Skate 3 through Xbox Cloud Gaming. And even for games that are also available on PC too, this is a great way to quickly try out new games without waiting for large downloads, playing more demanding games that may not run as well on handhelds, and even saving battery as you're just streaming these games. So long as you have a good internet connection, the experience here can be pretty solid. All Game Pass subscribers have access to unlimited cloud gaming, but only those in the ultimate tier, which yes, I am a part of, get access to the highest resolution of 1440p streaming and the ability to stream other supported games that they already own, which aren't included in Game Pass like Baldur's Gate 3 or even Cyberpunk 2077. So if you want that extra performance on the go, this can help a lot. Something to think about as you debate spending either $9.99, $14.99, or a whopping $29.99 a month respectively at the time of this video. Now, if you've already watched my iPhone 17 Pro gaming experience video, you'll know that I am obsessed with another cloud gaming service called NVIDIA GeForce Now. It's similar to Xbox Cloud Gaming, but has two major advantages. First, it has much better performance, especially when you're connected to a fast LAN internet cable. Compared to Xbox Cloud Gaming, the visuals and latency are way better. And yes, I often forget I'm streaming these games, even when playing fast-paced titles like Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Overwatch 2. This is because GeForce Now uses more powerful hardware to stream the games that you own from other storefronts, using up to RTX 5090 performance with near zero latency to a bunch of supported devices, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and even TVs. Yes, this is another subscription that you'll need to pay for, but there is actually a free tier that you can try that plays your games at lower settings with one-hour game limits. But if there's one thing that this has showed me, this is probably the future of all gaming, so long as you have a great internet connection. And like I've already shown a lot throughout this video, the ROG Xbox Ally X isn't just great for playing on the go, it also doubles as a really awesome mini desktop gaming PC. If you want to play your games on a bigger monitor or TV, you're going to need a few accessories. Most important is a USB-C dock so that you can connect to another display with HDMI or other accessories like peripherals or external storage using USB. I'm using my Razer handheld dock Chroma here because I'm a sucker for RGB lighting and it syncs with my other Razer peripherals. Speaking of which, for competitive shooters and other games, you're probably going to want a solid mouse and keyboard setup. Personally, I've been using the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro and Deathstalker V2 Pro, because again, RGB. But chances are you may already have a really solid combo at home that you can pair with Bluetooth or connect with USB on the dock. And let's be honest, just because this is a handheld with Xbox-like controllers, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't also pair this with a real Xbox controller, especially when you're playing with an external display. The standard Xbox controller that you probably already own works great, but for shooters, I really love my SCUF Instinct Pro, which has a better grip, programmable back buttons, and an instant trigger switch. So those are my must-have accessories for the ROG Xbox Ally, but what are yours? All right, so I know I have gone over a lot, but by now you should be very, very familiar with the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X. If you found this video helpful, be sure to like and subscribe for more setup essentials, and let me know in the comments if you already own or are planning to get the new Ally or Ally X, or if you have any other tricks or must-change settings. I'd love to hear those too. You can find us everywhere at Tom's Guide, and you can also follow me to see what other cool tech that I'm reviewing. And until the next one, I'll catch you later.