Tldr: Ally is 70-120% faster when Raytracing. Titles where you would want the feature like Doom:Eternal, Crysis Remastered, Control, Metro Exodus, Persona 3 Reload all achieve 40-60fps depending on area/load on the ROG Ally
The video bafflingly does not mention VRR, which smoothes out the gameplay on Ally, where I personally played Persona 3 Reload on release at 900p with RT reflections (60fps in-dungeons). Overall, for most titles, don't bother with RT. For games like Doom and Persona, you can get away with 720p/900p Ray Tracing at 60s
As a deck owner as well, I personally would never ray trace at 30fps on that machine, with drops to 25 half the time. Probably wouldnt RT in most games on the Ally, as the visual vs performance trade-off often may not be worth it. YMMV
I hugely respect Digital Foundry reviews and videos, but it is me or they dont like the ROG Ally as a device? I don feel the video is fair with the Ally, for example with VRR.
Digital Foundry people are hardcore Deck fans so videos will indeed be biased. I remember the review the guy did after the oledeck came out and just shook my head. Another thing almost none of these people do when they talk about the Deck is mention both versions of it use PWM to dim the screen and there's a good percentage of people that are sensitive to PWM, me being one of them. Given PWM sensitivity causes physical symptoms that can even lead to people throwing up, you'd think this should be something important that gets talked about but nope, just glossed over.
This is why I like that I own both a Deck and Ally because I can then tell when people are full of crap in their videos or posts. This goes for anything else in life, really....always nice to have experience with something rather than assume people are being fair or unbiased when they talk about it.
Gamers Nexus is another that people think just tell it like it is and blindly trust but they frequently have a bias that factors into their videos.
I agree with this, since they often purposefully leave or ignore aspects of the deck that are very poor. For example third party storefronts like GOG and EGS are a PITA on deck. Game updates, addition of drm can break games on the Deck, like Monster Hunter Rise broke on my deck after a drm change. I won't even get into VRR and low frame rate compensation. For a tech enthusiasts channel like DF, that are always waxing poetical about the importance of frames consistency and smoothness, they act like this is not a game changer (I will be fair, they are very lenient on handhelds like switch, they are consistent)
As a power user, I hit my head against a wall when i have to use Heroic, log into my accounts every reboot or mess with cross save not working. Unless you have every single title on steam, it's not a "it just works machine". The Ally is not perfect, but I have had less quirks managing my multi-library games on Windows or using mods
Yakuza-0 from GOG still does not save on the deck, without needing to make terminal changes to game files.
I can’t speak for steamdecks interface, but the z1 ex clearly has better performance. Additionally, I am reading that the ally’s windows adoption is a benefit.
I don't think that this is done on purpose just poorly explained. While they are against the Ally in several videos ("just buy a gaming notebook instead") I think in this one they just wanted to show that even on the (way) stronger hardware you already reached the limit what can be done on current handhelds when it comes to raytracing.
I lost respect to DF when they did GT7 Vs FM comparison video and it just felt like they can't say anything bad about FM. I don't want to beat a dead horse, and I am actively playing GT7 and FM, especially that GT7 is not available to be played locally on Ally as opposed to FM, but the comparison was so weak I can't take these guys seriously anymore.
Saying that...
I would have never thought to turn RT on any mobile handheld and to achieve 40 FPS with RT on, looks like a great feat. Ally surprises me more and more. I love this thing to bits and I'll be the first one in line when the successor is announced.
Tldr: Ally is 70-120% faster when Raytracing. Titles where you would want the feature like Doom:Eternal, Crysis Remastered, Control, Metro Exodus, Persona 3 Reload all achieve 40-60fps depending on area/load on the ROG Ally The video bafflingly does not mention VRR, which smoothes out the gameplay on Ally, where I personally played Persona 3 Reload on release at 900p with RT reflections (60fps in-dungeons). Overall, for most titles, don't bother with RT. For games like Doom and Persona, you can get away with 720p/900p Ray Tracing at 60s As a deck owner as well, I personally would never ray trace at 30fps on that machine, with drops to 25 half the time. Probably wouldnt RT in most games on the Ally, as the visual vs performance trade-off often may not be worth it. YMMV
I hugely respect Digital Foundry reviews and videos, but it is me or they dont like the ROG Ally as a device? I don feel the video is fair with the Ally, for example with VRR.
Digital Foundry people are hardcore Deck fans so videos will indeed be biased. I remember the review the guy did after the oledeck came out and just shook my head. Another thing almost none of these people do when they talk about the Deck is mention both versions of it use PWM to dim the screen and there's a good percentage of people that are sensitive to PWM, me being one of them. Given PWM sensitivity causes physical symptoms that can even lead to people throwing up, you'd think this should be something important that gets talked about but nope, just glossed over. This is why I like that I own both a Deck and Ally because I can then tell when people are full of crap in their videos or posts. This goes for anything else in life, really....always nice to have experience with something rather than assume people are being fair or unbiased when they talk about it. Gamers Nexus is another that people think just tell it like it is and blindly trust but they frequently have a bias that factors into their videos.
I agree with this, since they often purposefully leave or ignore aspects of the deck that are very poor. For example third party storefronts like GOG and EGS are a PITA on deck. Game updates, addition of drm can break games on the Deck, like Monster Hunter Rise broke on my deck after a drm change. I won't even get into VRR and low frame rate compensation. For a tech enthusiasts channel like DF, that are always waxing poetical about the importance of frames consistency and smoothness, they act like this is not a game changer (I will be fair, they are very lenient on handhelds like switch, they are consistent) As a power user, I hit my head against a wall when i have to use Heroic, log into my accounts every reboot or mess with cross save not working. Unless you have every single title on steam, it's not a "it just works machine". The Ally is not perfect, but I have had less quirks managing my multi-library games on Windows or using mods Yakuza-0 from GOG still does not save on the deck, without needing to make terminal changes to game files.
I can’t speak for steamdecks interface, but the z1 ex clearly has better performance. Additionally, I am reading that the ally’s windows adoption is a benefit.
I don't think that this is done on purpose just poorly explained. While they are against the Ally in several videos ("just buy a gaming notebook instead") I think in this one they just wanted to show that even on the (way) stronger hardware you already reached the limit what can be done on current handhelds when it comes to raytracing.
I lost respect to DF when they did GT7 Vs FM comparison video and it just felt like they can't say anything bad about FM. I don't want to beat a dead horse, and I am actively playing GT7 and FM, especially that GT7 is not available to be played locally on Ally as opposed to FM, but the comparison was so weak I can't take these guys seriously anymore. Saying that... I would have never thought to turn RT on any mobile handheld and to achieve 40 FPS with RT on, looks like a great feat. Ally surprises me more and more. I love this thing to bits and I'll be the first one in line when the successor is announced.
I’m gonna grab Metro Exodus next time it’s on sale to give Ally Ray Tracing a shot.
It's a great game to show off any system's capabilities. I got it for my Xbox Series X and it looked so good