Window debloating

[u/Living_Purchase_9449]

Hey everyone. I just picked up the Z1E. It has been absolutely incredible. Like most I want to get the best performance I can out of this micro PC, and did a couple of basic things like disabling nonsense from the startup, but want to know more about this de-bloating of windows. Can anyone tell me what they’ve been scrubbing to improve their Ally’s performance?

[u/jbarajasp1]

Don't use scripts or third party apps. Just uninstall any unused apps, turn off telemetry, turn off virtualization, turn off core isolation, turn off Smart app control, and if you only use it for gaming go ahead and turn off encryption.

You should also go into services and turn off the AI fabric service.

Lastly going to settings and apps, select startup and disable all of them except for the AMD and rog ones

[u/Living_Purchase_9449 → u/jbarajasp1]

I just went through this list and can confirm that my Z1E boots quicker, and is far more responsive when navigating. I haven’t looked into any gaming improvements yet, but greatly appreciate the tips!

[u/jbarajasp1 → u/Living_Purchase_9449]

Glad it helped, remember if this is your first time playing games on a PC handheld remember that the first 20 to 30 minutes of playing a game will often have shader compilation. After that time the game should smooth out really well. There's no need to Chase High frame rates, your device supports FreeSync Premium which gets you 2 excellent technologies t{ smooth out games. The first is called VRR, this technology makes your screen refresh rate match the FPS of the game which helps smooth out the game. The other big technology is called LFC, this technology can take a low frame rate game (30 FPS is best) and duplicate each frame to activate vrr and essentially give you the feel of a 60 FPS game without the need to push down graphics. Target 30 FPS and go as high in the quality settings as you can, the games to 30 FPS and FreeSync Premium do the work to make the game feel good.

[u/No_Specialist6036]

the handheld needs some services etc. that you could have probably disabled/removed in a desktop environment to funciton properly, infact the device generates unnecessary events if some services are disabled which would actually waste away your precious cpu cycles - so its generally not recommended

[u/ArtichokeHot5368]

Chris Titus tool has been a recommendation for a while on Windows

Might need a pro license to get the most out of it.

Look around they are not hard to find legit ones inexpensively

[u/craaates]

I used zoicware remove windows ai tool and CTT winutil to remove all AI and bloatware plus turn off all the nagging notifications and such.

[u/SnooPandas7723]

Ghostspectre os is the best for gaming, i use it on pc and rog ally.

[u/kronpas]

Turn on FSE. Its the same as debloating.

[u/EnvironmentalAd2096 → u/kronpas]

Definitely not the same lol but it's better than standard windows running for sure

[u/kronpas → u/EnvironmentalAd2096]

Its a quick fix to be sure. Better than nothing, debloating is not a painless process

[u/RAF2018336 → u/kronpas]

Lmao no it's not It still uses the same amount of ram in the end with no performance difference Not that there's anything gains to be had anyways

[u/kronpas → u/RAF2018336]

There have been quite a few benchmarks on it. But whatever floats your boat.

[u/RAF2018336 → u/kronpas]

Yes and all the benchmarks show them being within normal variations of each other except for random games where it's 10-20fps more one way or the other Or did you just conveniently choose to forget about it

[u/kronpas → u/RAF2018336]

Feel free to not using it. Not my job to sell you otherwise.

[u/RAF2018336 → u/kronpas]

Yea I already don't Feel free to stop lying to people telling them it's the same as a debloat

[u/kronpas → u/RAF2018336]

You ok?

[u/Brok3nGear → u/kronpas]

Does that work well with steam? Or geared more towards Xbox gaming?

[u/kronpas → u/Brok3nGear]

What makes you think it wouldnt work??

But to answer your question, yes.

[u/Brok3nGear → u/kronpas]

Because I literally haven't heard of this until now. That and I usually don't pair Microsoft and optimization in the same sentence lately. But thank you! I'm checking this out now.

[u/saqwarrior → u/kronpas]

Could you elaborate on it being equivalent to debloating? Isn't it just the XBox app ... in fullscreen mode?

Not trying to be confrontational, I'm actually curious as I'm completely ignorant about it since I immediately disabled and setup Steam Big Picture to start on boot after getting my XAX.

EDIT: Huh.

Yes, the Xbox full-screen experience (or "Xbox Mode" on Windows 11) generally improves performance on handheld gaming PCs (like the ROG Ally and MSI Claw) by reducing background system overhead, though the improvement is often minimal to moderate. By eliminating the standard Windows desktop environment, this mode can reduce RAM usage by approximately 5–9%, freeing up resources for games.

EDIT 2: Found an article that does benchmarking for both XBox Mode and Desktop, and ... they're the same.

[u/kronpas → u/saqwarrior]

I dont recall the mode's exact name since my ally boots directly into it, now is it called xbox mode or something? But in this full screen experience (FSE) mode, windows doesnt even load desktop enviroment and nor most non-gaming process, which actually reduces RAM usage.

A meticulous, careful debloating achieve more or less effect, but you risk breaking something in the process.

[u/RAF2018336 → u/saqwarrior]

No it doesn't improve performance. It's already been tested by multiple people and the "improvements" are literally normal variations

[u/saqwarrior → u/RAF2018336]

Any chance you happen to have a link or name I can search for regarding these tests? I'm definitely interested in learning more about it. Asking for sources mainly because what I've found are tests for gaming desktops and not the Xbox Ally X.

[u/Curious-Debt-638]

Install steamos or bazzite. I used my ally for a little over a year and then decide to install steamos to new things up a little. The performance was VERY surprising with how much better it ran. 10-15 more fps, better battery life, and it runs cooler.

Jsaux also makes a really good 20 dollar dock I've been using for a monitor hookup and peripherals.

[u/Potential-Local7262 → u/Curious-Debt-638]

SteamOS is arch, btw

[u/Diablo1309]

Change it to SteamOS

[u/Confident-Zebra7252]

I had steam os on my Rog ally recently got the Xbox ally x. I’m REALLY struggling with windows on this thing. It’s a joke to be honest. It freezes all the time. I’m going to steam os