If you want the best PC gaming handheld hardware, the Asus ROG Ally X is your pick. To get it, you'll need to tolerate Windows 11, which is less than stellar for handheld devices. Luckily, you can make the most of your Asus ROG Ally X by making a few tweaks to the handheld's settings immediately after you set it up for the first time. These changes help with performance, longevity, and convenience overall — they'll surely make the latest and greatest PC gaming handheld from Asus even better for portable gaming.

7 Get used to changing your handheld's TDP

You don't need your Asus ROG Ally X running at full speed constantly

An important acronym that all ROG Ally X owners should be familiar with is TDP, which stands for thermal design power. This figure is measured in watts and determines how much power your handheld's components consume, and in turn, affects performance and battery life. The four TDP settings available by default on the ROG Ally X are Silent (13W), Performance (17W), Turbo (25W), and Turbo+ (30W) modes. You can easily cycle through them by pressing the Command Center button and tapping Operating Mode on the overlay that appears.

It's a good idea to use the lowest TDP that you need to run a specific game or app, because this will preserve the most battery power. You should learn the demands of your favorite games and how each TDP setting affects your Asus ROG Ally X's battery life, making adjustments as needed. You might want to use Silent mode for Stardew Valley, and Turbo for Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Power users can create custom power profiles that perfectly match their battery life and performance needs, too.

6 Change the keyboard layout to traditional

This will make it easier to use common keyboard shortcuts

To navigate Windows 11 and Armoury Crate on your ROG Ally X, you'll use a combination of the built-in controller, the touchscreen, and the on-screen keyboard. However, the touchscreen keyboard won't show a full layout by default. It'll show a compact mode that lacks certain keys that are essential for shortcuts. After calling up the virtual keyboard, tap the gear icon in the corner of the floating window. Then, tap keyboard layout, and select traditional. Now, you'll be able to quickly use commands like Alt + Tab on apps and games that support them.

5 Set a battery health mode

Enabling this setting could make your Asus ROG Ally X battery last longer

The Asus ROG Ally X packs a massive, 80Wh battery capacity that's double the size of the original ROG Ally. If you want to maximize the longevity of your ROG Ally X's battery, you can sacrifice some of that extra capacity and choose to stop charging at 80%. To do so, open the MyAsus app on your ROG Ally X. Tap the Customization tab and select Battery Care Mode from the available options. You'll lose the top 20% of battery life, but that might be a worthy tradeoff if it preserves your battery health in the long run. This is an $800 handheld overall, so you won't want the battery to lose a lot of capacity in a year or two.

4 Enable offline mode

Run apps and games when you're away from home (and your home network)

While traditional handhelds, like the Nintendo Switch, are designed to be used offline, the same can't be said about Windows handhelds. You might run into issues with certain ROG Ally X games when your device is offline, but you can avoid some problems by turning on Offline Mode in the Windows 11 settings. To do this, open the Microsoft Store and select your profile picture. From there, select Settings, and find Offline permissions. Make sure the toggle beside it is flipped on.

This small change will ensure that you can run Microsoft Store and Game Pass titles on your ROG Ally X when it's offline. There's nothing more frustrating than taking your handheld on a plane and realizing you can't play your games offline. As such, you'll want to do this immediately, before you run into a compatibility problem.

3 Change your display settings

Set an FPS limiter or increase color saturation, for starters

The Asus ROG Ally X uses an LCD panel with a variable refresh rate, and there are a few ways you can tweak your display to make it your own. For starters, you can set a frame rate limiter in the Command Center. This will decrease the refresh rate of your display, preserving battery life. You can set a limiter by pressing the Command Center key and tapping FPS Limiter. Then, set the value you'd like to cap your device's frame rate at. Be sure to remember when you have the FPS limiter enabled or disabled, as to not waste performance, display quality, or battery life.

Additionally, you can make the LCD inside your ROG Ally X look more like an OLED handheld by ticking up the saturation. Open the AMD Adrenaline app and find the settings page. Next, tap the display tab and choose custom color. From there, increase the saturation value and make any other changes you'd like to the ROG Ally X's display. If you want to make your handheld feel like a Steam Deck OLED, this is how to do it.

2 Disable unnecessary startup apps

These could slow down your Asus ROG Ally X and limit performance

Most PCs have applications and tasks that automatically run when they're started up, and this isn't usually a problem for most systems. After all, many of us leave our desktop PCs and laptops running for quite a while before they ever need to be rebooted. With that being said, the Windows 11-based ROG Ally X is a different story. Users will frequently find themselves turning off the handheld to preserve battery life, and eventually starting it up again. Any unnecessary startup task on your ROG Ally X is slowing it down, eating up battery life and performance. That's why you should disable them using our guide below.

1 Increase the VRAM allocation

Get the most performance out of your Asus ROG Ally X

Asus equipped the ROG Ally X with a whopping 24GB of RAM, and that's great news for people who didn't find the 16GB memory of the ROG Ally to be enough. However, you should remember that this memory is shared between the CPU. You can assign a certain amount of RAM specifically to the GPU manually; in other words, increase the system's VRAM allocation.

To do this, open up Armory Crate by pressing the button on your ROG Ally X and find the Settings menu. Then, select Operating Mode and go to GPU Settings. From there, you can change your VRAM value. Be smart about your changes, because higher VRAM allocations can be helpful in GPU-heavy games, but can actually make matters worse in CPU-heavy titles. For more advice about VRAM allocations, check out our guide below.

What to do next after you've refined your settings

After changing these settings, the work shouldn't stop. Next, you should ensure that Windows 11, MyAsus, Armoury Crate, and AMD Adrenaline are all up-to-date so that you get the best performance. We won't blame you if you test out your changes by playing a few games at this point. When you're ready to keep tinkering with your ROG Ally X, we've got a list of eight third-party programs and programs that'll beef up your handheld and improve your experience.