The Lenovo Legion Go S may be the first official third party gaming handheld to support Valve’s SteamOS, but the owner of the Half-Life IP has also released the more recent beta version of the operating system. To that end, someone already took it upon themself to install it on their ASUS ROG Ally and try it out.
The person in question is a YouTuber known as The Phawx and they basically installed SteamOS 3.8 on the Ally, effectively replacing the original Windows 11 OS. As many of you have come to expect, the experience wasn’t exactly flawless.
First, SteamOS 3.8 doesn’t fully recognised the Ally. That said, The Phawx shows in his video that the console does support the handheld’s Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) mode, as well as its 120Hz refresh rate. However, some buttons don’t work – the back buttons specifically – and the TDP is locked in at 15W.
The Phawx then ran a handful of older games including Batman Arkham Knight, Half-Life 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, and Cyberpunk 2077, the last one clearly and obviously being a staple for handhelds and other gaming machines these days. To be clear, they ran fine and even trades blows with the Steam Deck. Imagine what the handheld could do if it had access to the Ally’s higher maximum 30W TDP.
Again, the Legion Go S is set to be the first gaming handheld to offer consumers an option to officially run on SteamOS. As for the software itself, when it becomes available, it’s clear that it will be put through the ringer by being installed on to the plethora of other non-Steam Deck gaming handhelds. Microsoft has alluded a response to Valve’s move, though it backtracked on that response awfully fast.
