Microsoft is adding some hand-tuned touches to the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. Announced and released today as Default Game Profiles (Preview), the new feature will automatically tune the hardware to supported games when playing, making sure to maximize battery life and keep frame rates steady.
During Microsoft"s testing, Hollow Knight: Silksong had managed to get almost an extra hour of playtime with its Default Game Profile compared to Performance mode without dipping below the 120 FPS mark.
"Default Game Profiles are hand-crafted per-game and only apply when on battery," explains Roanne Sones, CVP Gaming Devices and Ecosystem at Xbox. "When you launch a supported game, the system automatically applies a tailored game profile, which sets recommended power (TDP) and a FPS limit specific to the game."
The profile automatically boosts and limits the power of the handheld depending on how the game is running at the moment.
While the feature is out now on ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X handhelds, only 40 games have support for Default Game Profiles at the moment. This includes first-party Microsoft games like Minecraft, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and 7, Warzone, Doom Eternal, Doom: The Dark Ages, Forza Horizon 5, Gears of War Reloaded, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Sea of Thieves, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, among others.
To activate the new feature, players will need to have the latest versions of Armoury Crate SE, the Xbox PC app, and Windows 11. To disable Default Game Profiles, head to the Armoury Crate Command Center Game Bar widget, which will show the option with a toggle at the very top.
The company also gave some information on what"s coming next as features to its handheld devices. Next week, Game Save Sync is landing, which shows exactly when the game last got its save files synced across devices. Following that, "sleep and wake reliability, improved formatting options for microSD cards," as well as "AI-powered features such as Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR) and highlight reels," are also planned for the hardware.