Mortal Kombat 1 on the ROG Ally - First Impressions

Now that Mortal Kombat 1 is out, we can see if we can rip people apart in the palm of our hands. Playing on the Steam Deck will be a little tough unless you are willing to compromise on the framerate, and after these tests, I was a little worried about how it could perform on the ROG Ally. While it wasn't what I hoped it to be, I did get a glimpse at some potential that could come from future driver updates and patches.

Mortal Kombat 1 - First Impressions on the ROG Ally

I started the game up, and it went through the shader loading, but halfway through, the game had an error and crashed due to running out of memory. I was a little bit dismayed, but rebooting the Ally and trying again worked just fine, so I believe it was a small issue that could have been fixed by freeing up some RAM. After that, I got into the game and started testing.

I have seen that Mortal Kombat 1 may be a little difficult to run. At 720p, getting a solid 60 FPS was hard to hit. On the lowest possible settings, with FSR 2 at Quality mode and Turbo mode, the Ally can hit around 55 - 60 FPS on the maps I played. The game feels very fluid about 95% of the time, but there are still some stutters here and there that can break up the smoothness. The game also goes to 30 FPS for fatal blows, which can feel jarring now and then.

I also took a moment to try 1080p, which immediately made the game crash. Playing at anything between 30 and 60 FPS also felt uneven, so I wouldn't recommend going to 40 or 50. And with how powerful the Ally is, I would expect to play at 60 and not need to go down. Luckily, it can stick to a smooth 60 most of the time, but like I said, there are those little dips.

Like I mentioned in the Steam Deck article, I believe an AMD Graphics Driver is going to come out that will help. Nvidia released a driver two days ago, so I feel AMD will follow suit soon. Hopefully, this will help the performance and keep things at 60. Sadly, ASUS has been slow with driver updates, but one can hope.

On the plus side, the Ally's screen is fantastic. The extra color is wonderful and really makes some of these stages pop. I enjoyed jumping around and checking out some of the wonderful displayed stages.

Mortal Kombat 1 is another hard one to recommend right now. It is more stable than the Steam Deck and it is an amazing game, but otherwise, it still has some drops. Hopefully, a driver will come out that can help with this, and we will be able to play at 60 FPS without much compromise, but for now, steer clear if you want to play competitively.

If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back!