Owners of the ROG Ally looking to make some improvements at home are in luck. With some clever tricks, one owner has shared the steps to improving the system's memory from 16 to 32 gigabytes.
As shared by PCGamesN, YouTube user SlickBuys Mods and Repairs uploaded a video that showcases the upgrade process. The complicated steps include removing stock RAM chips, soldering in new ones, and BIOS editing. It's clear that getting this result was a collaborative process, with the video's description thanking several users for their hardware and idea contributions.
The idea of totally pulling apart a system may be daunting, but many games can benefit from a system having increased memory. Gamers that constantly suffer memory dump issues in games like Warzone and God of War may wish to follow the video guide or contact SlickBuys directly for an upgrade.
The comment section was naturally filled with questions and excitement. To one commenter asking if a "before and after performance [test]" was done, SlickBuys says that "games ran smoother and I saw a slight FPS increase (5-10). A battery upgrade tutorial is also promised in the near future, with the user saying "there's a 90whr battery mod that I will make a video on soon."
The upgrade is not without its risks, however. Another commenter asks if upgrading the RAM will cause them to "miss out on official BIOS updates", and is told that "future BIOS updates will need to be avoided, otherwise it will override the changes [that] I made." Another user points out that these updates often come with "optimizations and performance improvements", so users should be well-informed before making any hardware changes.
Read More: Steam Deck vs ASUS ROG Ally - which is better?
It's possible that these fan-made changes will be noticed by ASUS and assimilated into the next version of the system. We recently reported that a new Steam Deck model is on the horizon, and while competitors will be looking to improve as quickly as they can, it'll be important to see what users are choosing to upgrade.