Microsoft's Big Xbox Ally Fix Borrows a Switch Trick

Nintendo figured this out in 2017. When you drop a Switch into its dock, the handheld screen turns off and your game appears on the TV. Simple, elegant, obvious. It took Microsoft until now to bring that same behaviour to the ROG Xbox Ally, and I'm glad they finally did, because the old screen-mirroring setup was one of the device's most frustrating quirks.

The update, which Microsoft detailed across Xbox Wire and its support channels, goes well beyond the display switch. When docked, the Ally now automatically defaults to your TV's native resolution and activates features like Auto Low Latency Mode and Variable Refresh Rate on supported Samsung, LG, and Vizio sets. Pair an Xbox controller while docked and the handheld's built-in controls disable themselves, handing full input to the external pad. A new Display Widget inside Game Bar lets you tweak resolution, refresh rate, and projection mode without leaving your game. All of this adds up to something that actually feels like plugging in a console rather than wrestling with a tiny Windows laptop.

The other headline feature is Automatic Super Resolution, an AI upscaling tool that renders games at a lower resolution before scaling them up to what Microsoft describes as "1440p-like visuals" with higher frame rates. Auto SR is currently limited to docked mode and only available to Xbox Insiders on the Ally X, with supported titles including DOOM: The Dark Ages, Forza Horizon 5, Control, and Assassin's Creed Mirage. Microsoft says it started with docked mode because that's where drops in image quality are most noticeable on larger screens.

Rounding out the patch are Bluetooth LE Audio support for lower-latency wireless audio, enhanced vibration profiles, and a Gamepad Cursor feature that lets you use a controller as a virtual mouse in apps that don't support pad input. A library update arriving later this month will also let players add games from other PC storefronts directly into the Xbox app. I'm not going to pretend any single feature here is ; most of these are things the Switch or Steam Deck have offered in some form for years. But taken together, this is the update that finally makes the Ally's docked mode feel like it was designed on purpose rather than bolted on as an afterthought.