Running Linux on the Asus ROG Ally Gaming Handheld | Hacker News Reader

Running Linux on the Asus ROG Ally Gaming Handheld

phoronix.com

38 pointslnyan21 comments

They already nailed the software, but boy do I wish Valve would update the SteamDeck hardware with the new AMD 7000 SoCs and maybe a better display and a quieter cooling solution.

Progress has been so fast, it's been getting long in the tooth already compared to the competition, at least on the HW front.

There's enough gamers out there willing to spend more on an upgraded or a Pro SteamDeck for a better experience, that even with a price bump it would still be a good value when you compare it to how much a good GPU would cost, let alone a whole gaming PC.

It's not Valves style to do that. They normally do "one thing" that pushes the envelope forward and then wait for the 3rd parties to take over.

The steam box (or whatever their prebuilt pcs were called) made proton, so now Linux gaming is viable. The steam controller paved the way for their controller framework, now you can play any steam game with any controller. The steam link paved the way for their streaming tech, now you can do it with any android device.

This might be another case where they just let 3rd parties take over after showing them how it's done.

And 3rd parties aren't going to be using steamOS.

Would Valve care? They want those devices to run Steam, but any device running Windows or a generic enough Linux distro can do that, and promptly will, because people want access to the Steam library of games on whatever hardware they happen to have.

A specified hardware platform with set performance does wonders for optimization, but I agree it could use a better display. I've essentially concluded I'm never going to buy another LCD. The response times and complete lack of ghosting and light bleed on OLED make gaming on anything else seem like a compromise.

>A specified hardware platform with set performance does wonders for optimization

That only works when you have a critical mass adoption like the X-Box and PS4/5, while SteamDeck is a bit far away from those both in sales numbers and performance wise.

Most game studios still target the current gen consoles for minim performance specs, that even on powerful gaming PCs, the ported games still run like ass.

And even those consoles are getting a HW refresh soon.

So it's in Valves interest to update the HW to make sure that modern AAA PC ports can run on the SteamDeck.

Yeah I love my PS Vita for that reason.

Note that the Deck uses a AMD SoC explicitly designed for ~9W, but the Asus handheld is stuck with laptop silicon aimed at 15W-45W.

Its kinda a one hit wonder for handheld battery life, as AMD canceled the low power CPU line the Deck uses. Even Valve would be stuck with power/cost issues using a newer SoC.

You're talking about apples and oranges. Deck can also be pushed to 25W but most users have it at 15W witch the Asus can also scale down to. Then you have the manufacturing process, with the Deck using an older less efficient TSMC process node than the SoC in the Asus. So the fight is on.

Yeah don't get me wrong. Technically the Asus SoC is straight up better in every way, but

- It could be even better if it was a true low power chip like the Deck, with a 4 core config, a lower voltage target for the transistors and such.

- It practice, Asus runs the chip kinda hot? It doesn't handle low stress loads as efficiently as it should, and again this might be a consequence of using a laptop chip.

Reviews have suggested the Deck is a lot better at running lighter/older games. You can get the Steam Deck down to 6W total which will give you about 6 hours. The ROG Ally doesn't seem to be able to go that low and so battery life suffers in comparison.

Your comment is full of falsehoods. The Ally's CPU is designed for handheld gaming, not laptops, and the TDP target is 9-30W, not 15-45W. Furthermore AMD didn't cancel any CPU line used by the deck, the Deck CPU was a one-off that was never available to anyone besides steam and evolved into the Z1 which is used in the Ally.

https://www.amd.com/en/processors/ryzen-z1

The ryzen z1 is based on the laptop phoenix silicon. Its tuned, but underneath it is the same die size on the same proccess with the same core/gpu config.

Van Gogh (the steam deck chip) was originally supposed to be in more products, and showed up in multiple leaks with details that were confirmed later: https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-mobile-apus-for-2021-2022-de...

The same leaks specified a van gogh successor as well.

What happened afterwards is speculation, but it seems logical to assume AMD canceled that line.

Okay I guess with that extra context your comment makes more sense. But you are still off on the tdp, unless you dispute AMDs numbers.

That kinda comes from my own experience with ROG laptops.

Not sure about the Z1, but Asus's and AMD's "power saving" mode for renoir and cezzane was still too zealous. They clocked too high under light loads and burned lots of power, in spite of their advertised power savings.

In addition, for gaming workloads, they didn't manually underclock to 6W or even 9W very well. They just burned too much power to split between 8 cores, the GPU and the rest of SoC, while the Deck chip (of the same generation) seems quite happy under heavy load at 6W. Hence, being such a big chip, I am skeptical the Z1 likes to run at 6-9W.

High Yield has a good video on how much more Valve worked on making the Steam Deck's APU work at low TDPs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llOo10p1ijM

Just shoving a laptop chip into it clearly can work, but it is a very different device. Given Valve's history I think they'll leave that to third parties, and focus more on delivering something no one else is.

Wasn't it mostly made for Magic Leap 2? https://twitter.com/Locuza_/status/1520837865349001217

Notice that the newer steam decks have way quieter cooling fans already. We have 2 steam decks in my home (mine bought immediately, my wife only a couple of months ago), and hers is way quieter than mine.

You can also get it fixed, but you need to send your steamdeck in.

Silence is a big point for me. With the Deck right now if you don’t want to hear its fan you’re going to be running old titles with the SoC locked at a low TDP which is very limiting.

The idea of Valve releasing SteamOS as a Linux distribution is interesting.

I don't know for sure but I believe the UI has a hand written compositor specifically designed for Steam and various other game-centric features.

Supporting non-Valve hardware would be challenging charity work (though brining customers to the Steam platform is valuable - it's still a small number of people and a large amount of work).

Perhaps releasing the SteamOS frontend under a OS copyleft license would be a great way for them to let companies ship their own handhelds without taking on the burden of supporting their hardware.

There's certainly demand for the use of the SteamOS frontend and Steam could really become a monopoly in the space. In a lot of ways that would make it the first major open source game console platform.

Anyway, when I get my ROG I will definitely be playing around with Linux.

Could the steam deck distribution run on this?

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