The Asus Xbox Ally X has just been tested with Bazzite, and it basically turns it into a supercharged Steam Deck

Owners of the new Asus Xbox Ally X handheld may not have to put up with the foibles of Windows that we noted in our Xbox Ally X review for much longer, as an alternative OS is already looking very promising. A new version of the Linux-based Bazzite platform has been tested on the handheld, and it looks like this SteamOS-like system offers a considerable improvement over Windows on the device.

While the Steam Deck still sits at the top of our best gaming handheld buying guide, if more devices adopted SteamOS, or a similar Linux-based platform, it could end up being usurped, especially as Valve's portable has far less processing power than many of the latest releases.

YouTuber Cyber Dophamine recently posted a video called "fixing the Xbox Ally with SteamOS," in which they install the latest version of Bazzite onto the handheld, and it's already been updated to work seamlessly with the new Xbox-themed console.

The first observation made is that the sleep and wake-up processes are extremely different. With Bazzite, the Xbox Ally X sleeps and wakes up almost immediately, with gameplay picking up from where it was left. In Windows, the console fans continue to run for a short while even after the console is asleep, while waking the console takes longer generally and also includes having to re-enter your Windows PIN.

In performance tests at 17W on Windows, using Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, the Xbox Ally X averages 47fps, but in Bazzite, this figure increases to 62fps, under the same conditions. In Hogwarts Legacy, the Xbox Ally X averaged 50fps (although the frame rate graph shows some drops into the low 40s), while in Bazzite, this increased to 62fps.

The differences at lower and higher TPDs vary, although Bazzite and SteamOS consistently outperform Windows in the tests from this video, with frame rates also being unstable at times when using Windows. I've also found in my testing that many handhelds tend to perform best at 17-25W TDP settings, depending on the specific CPU that's being used in the handheld.

Bazzite is free to download on any handheld or desktop PC, and you can dual-boot alongside Windows should you still want to play games that aren't compatible with Linux, such as Battlefield 6.

Would you load a Linux platform onto a Windows handheld if it meant getting better gaming performance? Let us know over on our community Discord server.