We Now Have Our First Look At SteamOS On The ROG Ally

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SteamOS coming to devices other than the Steam Deck is bound to happen, and we have already seen it announced to come with the Lenovo Legion Go S in a few months. However, there have been no announcements or plans to bring SteamOS to other specific devices. We can infer that the ROG Ally will have support due to patch notes from Valve, but that's still not a full official confirmation. But for those interested, we can now see what SteamOS will look like on other devices, and it begins with the ROG Ally.

In a video from The Phawx on YouTube, he shows how he was able to get the actual SteamOS operating system working on the ROG Ally. This is an extremely early version of SteamOS 3.8 and not the final version that will go on other devices, but it's pretty amazing to see the real SteamOS running on another device already.

Interestingly, The Phawx points out that SteamOS recognizes the ROG Ally's controller as an Atari Xbox 360 Game Controller, but the additional buttons and back buttons aren't recognized. It is recognizing the 120Hz screen and VRR, but it is forcing a TDP limit of 15. This does mean that some 2D games like Sonic Mania is using way more power than it should.

The gameplay results seem to be pretty in line with the Steam Deck LCD. The ROG Ally had better results for Batman Arkham Knight and Cyberpunk 2077 but fell a bit behind with Deux Ex Mankind Divided and Returnal. Regardless, it was pretty much in line with the LCD Steam Deck on almost every game that was tested. It seems that Valve has been doing some tinkering behind the scenes to specifically conserve power and optimize playing games on the Steam Deck hardware, which I enjoyed seeing.

It's going to be interesting to see just how SteamOS will be on other devices like the Ally, but with this look, we have a solid idea of what to expect and where we could move forward for improvements. Hopefully, Valve implements some of the optimizations for the Deck onto other hardware so we can make the most out of our game time.

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