ASUS Armoury Crate vs Feral GameMode

ASUS Armoury Crate is free Windows software for managing ASUS and ROG gaming PCs and connected hardware. It provides device lighting, firmware updates, macros, key or button assignments, fan control, audio and performance settings, with available controls varying by model. Aura Sync coordinates lighting across supported devices, while Aura Creator provides a video-editing-style interface for layered LED effects. Scenario Profiles can switch operating modes and system settings for individual games and apps. Game Library organizes downloaded PC games, and Game Deals lists rotating discounts and weekly offers for ROG VIPs. Users can create a profile, register products and download drivers, firmware and apps. ASUS lists Windows 10 version 1903 or later and Windows 11. Installation options include a device-detecting framework installer or a full package for manual and offline installation. Supported hardware includes headsets, graphics cards, power supplies, mice, motherboards, mousepads, CPU coolers, laptops, desktops, keyboards and monitors. Aura Sync no longer supports Xiaomi Light Strips.

Feral GameMode is a free Linux daemon and library that lets games request temporary optimisations to the host operating system or game process. It can adjust the CPU governor, I/O priority, process niceness and scheduler policy, inhibit the screensaver, change GPU performance mode, pin or park CPU cores, and run custom scripts. Games and launchers with built-in support can activate GameMode automatically; other games can be launched with the gamemoderun command or a Steam launch option. GPU performance mode is supported for NVIDIA and AMD, while GPU overclocking is listed for NVIDIA. The project lists packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Solus, Arch, Gentoo, Fedora, OpenSUSE and Mageia, with possible availability elsewhere. Configuration uses a gamemode.ini file with options for GPU and CPU settings, filters, supervisor access and scripts. GameMode is maintained by Feral Interactive and is available under the BSD 3-Clause License (Revised). Its build depends on Meson, internal communication uses systemd, and development requires a C environment. For hybrid GPU commands such as optirun, automatic integration after game startup is unavailable; a wrapper with gamemoderun is described instead.