- ID Software Doom: The Dark Ages Facing opposite troubled problems on handheld games -PCs
- The problem seems to come from outdated drivers at AMD Ryzen Z1-powered handheld as ASUS ROG Ally
- It seems that neither AMD nor ID Software is reponsible, but rather the handheld PC suppliers such as ASUS and Lenovo
The long wait of ID Software Doom: The Dark Ages Finally, as Premium Edition, which delivers two days of early access, is now available -but if you are using an AMD -powered handheld game -PC, it’s probably best to avoid now.
As reported by our friends on PC Gamer, Doom: The Dark Ages are not -Pillable on handheld games -PCs, especially those who use AMDS Ryzen Z1 chips due to constant crashes. This is evident in the video provided by PC Gamer who sees the game crash in seconds due to an AMD driver error.
I can confirm the same degraded problems; While starting in the game’s campaign was fine (on my Asus Rog Ally Z1 Extreme), it took no longer than 10 seconds before the game stopped. This would result in either a black screen, with the game still audible in the background or worse, artisting – however, the blame is apparently not on ID software and its new title.
Since the game requires the latest AMDadrenaline 25.5.1 Graphics Driver – which is the first prompt shown at startup – the crashes on these handhelds are expected. And it points directly to the question; Asus Rog Ally and Lenovo Legion Go, who use AMDS Ryzen Z1 -extreme processors, runs more often than not on outdated graphics drivers.
This lack of driver support from ASUS and Lenovo has been an ongoing problem since the launch of these handhelds, resulting in games that either cannot be played at all or suffer from frequent crashes as they require newer drivers to work well.
I have seen this occur with games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and The last of us part 2 – The former has a tendency to have driver accidents in the game’s ‘zombies’ mode, and the results cannot be replicated on a stationary gaming -PC that has access to the latest drivers. It leaves some handheld players without a solution as sideloading (manual installation of newer drivers) does not always work – and can easily result in ‘Code 43’ errors that I encountered several times.
This is one of the main reasons my Asus Rog Ally collects dust
It’s bad enough that Microsoft’s Windows 11 and other applications such as Armory Crate have several bugs and slow responsiveness; Throwing the missing driver support from handheld PC suppliers literally prevents users from playing certain games.
You can also claim that Doom: The Dark Ages Technically not even is released yet (as it is early access), but these problems do not appear to be from the PC port. This is a support problem and a quick look at the latest graphics driver available on Asus’ Rog Ally Support page shows you that the latest driver was at the time of writing in February earlier this year.
I’m lucky enough to have a Powerhouse Gaming PC to easily dive into play, but for those who bought a Ryzen Z1-powered handheld to be their primary game device, this just isn’t good enough. Of course, nothing is perfect, but devices that cost a lot should at least be supported in the long run.
