Did not expect this. MSFS was perfectly usable on the ASUS ROG Ally flying around Chicago at medium detail. I was expecting a slideshow,
Running on the hardware, not on Xbox game streaming.
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I think using msfs’ community addons in handheld is a bit troublesome. And need mouse but only have 1 charging slot (need mouse because airliner cockpit have many buttons, using the handheld mapping button is a troublesome as well). Battery will die fast & battery health will shorten fast (is this thing have bypass charging?)
Running perfectly fine on much higher settings.
I’m not there yet, but someone needs to lay out optimal setup for msfs2020 on Ally.
Not just in-game settings, but what APU settings in the Ally, 4G or 8G allocated to VRAM, etc. etc.
Lots of updates released on the Ally in just the past day, clearly they’re pedaling furiously hard and fast!
I think at this point any CTDs or stutters are coming from running in Turbo mode. The Ally heats up fast! But it’s got plenty of power to spare as a W11 machine, you just have to know how to optimize everything.
I’m currently running the game off the microSD, as my full install is too large for the puny 2230 they shipped with. It’ll be better when I exchange that for a 2TB, but in the meantime, the A2 microSD is basically running at old-school magnetic hard drive rates, so that will do, as long as the Manual Cache in 2020 is on the NVMe.
Unfortunately changing out the SSD will require full install of everything.
Because Xbox Gamepass on the Ally isn’t doing a very good job at the moment of seamlessly moving games from SSD to NVMe and back, that can complicate things. Otherwise I’d recommend Standard Edition install on the NVMe and then moving it to and from microSD as desired, when switching which games you are playing.
As a result of initial lack of clarity on how all this works, I’m now on the THIRD full game reinstall. Sorry, Azure servers! 
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I remember seeing a tiny joystick/throttle combo a couple years ago and thinking it was cute, but I didn’t have a use case for it. Now I’m wishing I could remember the product name!
As far as the mouse goes, I’m using a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard with it.
And this makes the most sense, really, when plugged in due to the extra performance you can get when attached to wall power. If you’re trying to play on a real airplane, you’re also not going to have access to the streaming servers.
Also, you can likely just use a USB hub that supports power delivery to plug in multiple devices while still charging.
When I initially installed it, I was planning to giggle at the slideshow frame rate and then delete it. So I was shocked and pleasantly surprised it was playable. Wasn’t planning to invest time in finding optimal settings, but with some trips coming up, looks like I’ll be keeping this around.
I installed the main executable on C:, but during setup told it to put the Community and Official folders on the SDXC card under D:\MSFS. That way if you do need to reinstall the base executable again (new SSD or whatever), you can save re-downloading all of the Content files.
I haven’t benchmarked the Ally’s storage – been sick and busy at work so my time with it has been pretty light and I wasted too much time discovering Star Trek Resurgence has crash bug on it – but reading some Steam Deck articles, a really fast SSD can be as fast or faster than the internal SSD for reads on that platform. I have a Sandisk Extreme Pro 1TB on order, which will be a good test of that and have room for a decent size MSFS install.
So two things, please pardon my ignorance: how did you set it up to put community and official folders on the microSD during install? It would be helpful to others here to have info on that.
Second, you’re saying putting an NVMe inside an enclosure hooked to the USB-C port will be faster than the internal NVMe? That doesn’t make sense to me, as I’d expect the internal NVMe to be on PCIe bus, not at gen 3.2 external USB rate….?
Thanks in advance for any reply!
I think this is what you mean?
This is an interesting topic! I was happily playing the sim on a OneXPlayer until I bit the bullet and went full-desktop-ninja for my hobby. For the size and more impressively the low power usage, it is incredible!
I did use an eGPU though (RTX2070) as the OneXPlayer has Thunderbolt and the poor little Iris XE inside could not really manage anything much unless render res was at like 30-40% (still playable, but didn’t look good on that super hi def 8.4 inch screen!
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I’d forgotten about the Yawman Arrow! I’d be totally interested if it wasn’t two-hundred-and-freaky-fifty dollars. That’s cray.
This was literally a tiny traditional joystick and throttle. I’ll find it and post it here eventually!
Before installation, create an MSFS folder on your SD card. Then, during installation, when it gets to the “Package Path” screen, click the stupid bizarre lengthy GUID-infested default folder name, and change it to d:\msfs. I also do this on my desktop, because the default folder option is ridiculous, and it saves you re-downloading all the packages if you have to reinstall – you just point back to that folder on the new install.
No, you are correct, that would not make sense. I’m talking an SDxc card. On the Steam Deck, at least, they benchmark very similarly to the internal SSD when it comes to actuallly loading games. That’s where I have my package foders.
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$250!? Is that how much they want for it? That is chicken oriental! 
This was it! The AXAIR MICO. Perfect companion for a handheld FS rig. Alas, looks like they’re sold out. I pinged them to see if they’re going to make more.
Wow that’s so cute!
So who’s going to be first to train a pet hamster to land a plane?
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Looks like you can get it here but it’s unclear: https://www.laptime.nl/shop/index.php?id_product=1&controller=product
They also do other cute little controllers. MIAP, MILI and EASY.
The MILI says “due to chip shortage contact us for lead times”, the MIAP has “In Stock” green badge. The Yoke seems to let you buy, without the In Stock badge, but also without the “contact us” text so hmmmm. 
Yeah, alas, there’s no “buy” button on the yoke. 
I sent a note to their contact email asking if they’re going to get more stock.
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