A list of useful terms for Windows 11 and the ROG Ally.
A
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is an open source, high-quality solution for producing high resolution frames from lower resolution inputs.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.0 is an open source, high-quality solution for producing high resolution frames from lower resolution inputs. It uses temporal data and optimized anti-aliasing to boost framerates in supported games while delivering similar or better image quality than native resolution without requiring dedicated machine learning hardware.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3), is the latest version of the company’s upscaling tech. AMD claims it’ll provide 2x times increase in frame rate over FSR 2, boosted by the new AMD Fluid Motion Frames technology.
AMD Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) is a feature that works at the graphics-drivers level rather than at the game-engine level. Therefore, it has no control over game settings, and doesn't require any developer support. It's not meant to replace FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), but rather provide a way for gamers to improve the performance of any game at minimal image quality loss.
Amazon Luna is Amazon's Cloud Gaming Service. Amazon Luna is Compatible/Supported on a vartiey of Devices and Browsers.
Armoury Crate is Asus software that helps you manage every aspect of your device from the initial setup to RGB lighting. It also helps with getting the latest updates, drivers, manuals and offers, and connect instantly with your gaming peers.
ASUS Cloud Recovery is a built-in Asus ROG tool that makes it super easy to reinstall Windows 11 and Armoury Crate on your ROG Ally device.
B
Blizzard Battle.net is an internet-based online gaming, digital distribution, and digital rights management platform developed by Activision and Blizzard Entertainment. Battle.net is the launcher for World of Warcraft, Diablo III, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch and Call of Duty.
BlueStacks is a the Fastest & Lightest Android App Player for PC.
BlueStacks X is a Cloud-Based Android Gaming Platform that let's you select a game to play from the 2 million+ games available either locally or stream to your PC from the cloud.
bsnes is a Super Nintendo (SNES) emulator focused on performance, features, and ease of use.
C
Citra is an open-source emulator for the Nintendo 3DS capable of playing many of your favorite games.
Chiaki is a Free and Open Source Software Client for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 Remote Play.
D
D3D11On12 is a mechanism by which developers can use D3D11 interfaces and objects to drive the D3D12 API. D3D11on12 enables components written using D3D11 (for example, D2D text and UI) to work together with components written targeting the D3D12 API.
DirectX Raytracing (DXR) is an API that focuses on delivering high performance by giving the application signficant low-level control, as with earlier versions of DirectX 12.
DirectStorage API is an API in the DirectX family originally designed for the Velocity Architecture to Windows.
Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) is as a Windows 10/11 tool designed to help network administrators prepare, modify, restore, and repair Windows images, including those used for Windows PE, Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and Windows Setup.
Discord is an application with modern voice & text chat app. It provides clear voice, multiple server and channel support, mobile apps, and more.
Dolphin is an emulator for two recent Nintendo video game consoles: the GameCube and the Wii.
DOSBox is an open-source DOS emulator which primarily focuses on running DOS Games.
DuckStation is an simulator/emulator of the Sony PlayStation 1 console, focusing on playability, speed, and long-term maintainability.
E
EA Play is a subscription-based video game service from Electronic Arts for the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows platforms, offering access to selected games published by Electronic Arts along with additional incentives.
Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It's available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
EmuDeck Windows Edition is a tool that takes care of everything for your retrogaming needs from RetroArch Configuration, Bezels, Gamepad Configuration for GameCube, Wii, Citra, SNES, etc.
EmulationStation Desktop Edition (ES-DE) is a frontend application for browsing and launching games from your multi-platform game collection.
Epic Games Store is a digital video game storefront for Microsoft Windows and macOS, operated by Epic Games.
F
File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager for the Windows desktop.
Flycast is a multi-platform Sega Dreamcast, Naomi and Atomiswave emulator derived from reicast.
G
Geekbench 6 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures your system's performance with the press of a button.
Geforce NOW is NVIDIA's Cloud Gaming Service.
GOG GALAXY is a fully optional client to install, play and update your games.
H
Hatari is an Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon emulator for Linux, BSD, MacOS, Windows and other systems which are supported by the SDL library. The Atari ST was a 16/32 bit computer system which was first released by Atari in 1985.
Heroic is an Open Source Game Launcher for Linux, Windows and macOS.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is a feature that offers better brightness and color capabilities compared to traditional content (Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) content). HDR can show a wider range of colors and light and more details in between the extremes. Colors are more vivid and unique in HDR content.
I
Itch.io Store is an app that lets you effortlessly download and run games and software from itch.io.
J
K
KDE Connect is a tool that lets you easily link up your phone to your computer, your computer to your tablet; or your computer to your device.
L
M
MAME is a Arcade Machine Emulator.
m64p is a Nintendo 64 Emulator.
mGBA is a new emulator for running Game Boy Advance games.
Moonlight Game Streaming is a program that let you stream from your PC games over the Internet with no configuration required.
N
NanoBoyAdvance is a highly accurate Nintendo Game Boy Advance emulator.
Nestopia is a portable NES/Famicom emulator written in C++.
O
Origin is an online gaming, digital distribution and digital rights management (DRM) platform developed by Electronic Arts that allows users to purchase games on the internet for PC and mobile platforms, and download them with the Origin client (formerly EA Download Manager, EA Downloader and EA Link).
P
Parsec is a video game streaming platform, which offers a wide variety of games and genres to choose from and provides a high-quality and smooth gameplay.
PCSX2 is a PlayStation 2 'emulator', a free program that tries to replicate the PlayStation 2 console to enable you to play PS2 games on your PC.
Pegasus is a cross platform, customizable graphical frontend for launching emulators and managing your game library (especially retro games) and launching them from one place.
PlayStation Remote Play is a feature available on all PS4 and PS5 consoles that let's you control your PlayStation® console remotely wherever you have a high-speed internet connection.
PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10/11 experience for greater productivity.
PrimeHack is a fork of Dolphin Emulator to bring modern Mouse and Keyboard controls, as well as Dual-Stick gamepad controls to the Metroid Prime Trilogy. It also offers many other features such as increased FoV and various new cheats. Versions of Metroid Prime that are currently supported.
Process Lasso is a tool for real-Time CPU Optimization and Automation.
Q
Qt is a cross-platform application development framework for desktop, embedded and mobile. Supported Platforms include Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS.
Quick Resume is a feature on the Xbox Series X & Series S consoles, where you can jump back into your games right where you left off. When you switch from one game to another, the console saves the state of the current game. If there's a Quick Resume state for a game that you switch to, the console will load that state for you. Note, that Quick Resume will be coming to Windows in the near future through DirectStorage.
R
Ray tracing is a method of graphics rendering that simulates the physical behavior of light.
RetroArch is a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players. It enables you to run classic games on a wide range of computers and consoles through its slick graphical interface.
RPCS3 is an experimental open-source Sony PlayStation 3 emulator and debugger written in C++ for Windows and Linux.
Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives.
Ryujinx is an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator created by gdkchan and written in C#. This emulator aims at providing excellent accuracy and performance, a user-friendly interface, and consistent builds.
S
Secure boot is a security standard developed by members of the PC industry to help make sure that a device boots(Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) BIOS) using only software(such as bootloaders, OS, UEFI drivers, and utilities) that is trusted by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).
Shadow is a fully-featured, cloud-based, high-end computer. It is the only remote service that offers performance capable of competing with a local PC. Available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android/AndroidTV, and iOS/tvOS.
SFC (System File Checker) is a utility in Microsoft Windows that allows users to scan for and restore corrupted Windows system files.
sfc /scannow is a command will scan all protected system files, and replace corrupted files with a cached copy that is located in a compressed folder at %WinDir% \System32\dllcache. The %WinDir% placeholder represents the Windows operating system folder.
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront from Valve..
SteamGridDB is a huge database where you can download and share custom video game assets and personalize your gaming library.
SGDBoop is a tool that automatically applies assets from SteamGridDB directly to your Steam library with a click of a button, removing the need to download and set them manually.
Steam Remote Play Together is a steam service that let's you share your Steam local multi-player games with friends over the internet, for free.
Sunshine is a Game stream host for Moonlight that is a self-hosted, low latency, cloud gaming solution with support for AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA GPUs.
Sysinternals Suite is the entire set of Sysinternals Utilities rolled up into a single download. Also, checkout the Sysinternals Utilities Index.
T
Task Manager is a system monitor program used to provide information about the processes and applications running on a computer, as well as the general status of the computer.
U
Ubisoft Connect is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications service created by Ubisoft to provide an experience similar to the achievements/trophies offered by various other game companies.
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a tiny operating system that runs on top of the PC's firmware, and it can do a lot more than a BIOS. It may be stored in flash memory on the motherboard, or it may be loaded from a hard drive or network share at boot.
V
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) is a key feature that dynamically adjusts its refresh rate based on the frame rate of the content you’re viewing without user input. A display supporting a variable refresh rate usually supports a specific range of refresh rates (30Hz-144Hz).
Visual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications.
Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It's used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps.
ViVe is a C# library you can use to make your own programs that interact with Windows 11's A/B feature mechanism.
Vulkan is a low-overhead graphics and compute API for high-efficiency, cross-platform access to GPUs.
W
Warpinator is a free, open-source tool for sending and receiving files between computers that are on the same network.
Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) is a feature of Windows that allows users and developers to utilize a virtual machine (VM) which provides compatibility with the AOSP framework and devices like keyboards, mice, touch, pen, etc.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a feature of Windows that allows developers to run a Linux environment without the need for a separate virtual machine (VM) or dual-booting.
WinDirStat(Windows Directory Statistics) is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for various versions of Microsoft Windows.
X
Xbox Game Pass is a video game subscription services from Microsoft.
xemu is an original Xbox emulator.
Xenia is an Xbox 360 Emulator.
Y
yuzu is an experimental open-source emulator for the Nintendo Switch from the creators of Citra.
Z