Anyone who’s ever owned a gaming laptop knows of its fundamental weakness: Plugged in, it can game forever. Unplugged, its gaming capabilities can be measured in minutes. Microsoft and its “handheld gaming PC,” the ROG Xbox Ally, have struck a balance with new Default Game Profiles.
It’s a smart addition to the handheld PC. Microsoft knows that most gamers want to hit a target frame rate on their favorite games, and anything else is just overkill. (Well, not really, but when battery life is factored in, sure.) These new Default Game Profiles are available via the “latest updates for Armoury Crate SE, the Xbox PC app, and Windows 11,” Microsoft says.
About 40 games are supported, Microsoft says, including these:
- 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
Here’s what’s going on: Each game has a targeted frame rate, which Microsoft has “hand-crafted” for the specific game itself, according to Microsoft’s blog post on the subject. If the game isn’t consistently hitting that frame rate, Microsoft’s Xbox app and the ROG Xbox Ally will increase the power that the battery supplies to the GPU. If the game is running too well at the expense of battery life, Microsoft will throttle down the ROG Xbox Ally’s components, reducing power and extending battery life. In Hollow Knight: Silksong, for example, Microsoft says that these new settings will extend the handheld’s battery life by an hour while still maintaining a 120fps frame rate.
(Here’s how to enable the new Default Game Profiles on the Xbox Ally: Go into the Armoury Crate Command Center widget, than scroll down to Game Profiles entry. Next to it is a toggle switch, which should be toggled on to enable the new profiles.)
The November updates also include quicker library loading and improved performance on the Cloud Gaming page, plus a Performance filter for your game gallery. The last filter will allow you to see how well each game will run on your device, a nice complement to the Default Game Profile update.
On the roadmap: a game save indicator that will debut next week. Microsoft also plans to bring Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR) and highlight reel to the platform, increasing frame rates further using AI. That addition should occur “early next year,” Microsoft said, following the recent release of the Xbox Full Screen Experience on all Windows handhelds.