In 2024, I bought an ASUS ROG Ally Z1, a handheld gaming PC. Since then, I've done a lot of customisations to it, both on the software and hardware sides, and I thought it'd be a good idea to document them here; maybe I'll help someone overcome some of the problems I faced, with time saved on looking for solutions, and also provide some ideas for what you can do with this thing. As of 2026, I still use the device often, and it's plugging along nicely.
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Persistent nostalgia
The past few months, I've spent some time to set up a room in my house to be a pretty sweet space dedicated to retro-gaming. This includes a vintage PC, a CRT TV, and a multitude of classic games consoles hooked up to four RCA/AV switches. This works well, and to play the console we want, one can just flip a couple of switches instead of having to unplug and shuffle around literally 8 different sets of RCA cables.
Thing is, when you're playing games, especially during couch coop, things tend to happen. Some of these things, depending on the types of games you play, can be utterly hilarious, and worth saving for posterity. With the two last generations of consoles I own, PS5, PS4 and the Nintendo Switch, you can just press a single button on the controller to save recent gameplay as a file to the system storage, which is awesome. When you also enjoy playing on 20-30 year old game consoles as well, this part becomes a bit trickier.
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