How it works

1 · What RigTune does

For every game and every handheld PC, RigTune tells you which settings to use: how many watts, what refresh rate to set, what frame rate to aim for and how much battery you will get.

• Explore the game catalog with its recipes.
• My library your games: the ones from the stores you connect and the ones you add by hand.
• Travel what will last you a flight or a long journey, and which games start without a connection.
• Handhelds your own machines and the spec sheets for the rest, with comparison tools.
• Auto-Tuning a recipe made for your case, when the catalog one does not fit.
• Account your profile, your game accounts and your preferences.

2 · Where the numbers come from

We have not measured them by playing every game on every handheld. That would be tens of thousands of tests.

We calculate them by combining three things: the real watts and battery of your handheld, how demanding the game is according to data published by third parties, and the generator's rules.

These are RigTune estimates: we don't have our own measurements yet. That is why every recipe carries one line underneath saying where it comes from, and whether people who have already tried it have confirmed it. When we have our own measurements, we will say so on each recipe.

3 · Why what you see changes

This is the important part, and the reason for this page.

RigTune shows different things depending on what you have set up. It is not a bug: with more information we can tell you something more useful.

• Without choosing a handheld you will see the catalog with cover art but no numbers: without knowing your machine we cannot tell you what to expect.
• Once you choose a handheld each game shows its frame rate and watts. The chosen handheld stays up in the top bar and is the same across the whole app: you change it there, not inside each game.
• If you save a preferred profile the cards stop showing a range and show a single figure instead, like «60 FPS · 18 W on balanced». With no saved profile you still get the range, which spans everything from maximum battery saving to maximum performance.
• If you tell us which operating system you use the advice changes: some games will not launch on SteamOS because of their anti-cheat, and some tweaks only work on Windows.
• When you are signed in «My selection» appears, filtering your library by what matters to you.

4 · How to read the figures

The big frame rate figure is the target: what you should see most of the time. Underneath, smaller, is the expected floor, which is what to expect in the busiest scenes.

Battery reads the same way but the other way round: the big figure is the cautious one. If it says «2.7 h», that is what you can count on; underneath you will see how far it stretches in the best case, for example with the brightness down.

And in the game page's «With a power bank» block, the accessory is shown as what it adds, «+3.3 h», not as a total: that way you know what it buys you without doing any subtraction.

5 · The three profiles

Every game has three recipes: battery, balanced and performance.

The difference is not always in the frame rate.

Sometimes two profiles aim at the same figure and the performance one uses more watts: that is not a mistake. The extra watts do not buy more frames, they buy holding those frames when the scene gets busy.

6 · The comparison tools

There are four of them, and they are not all in the same place.

• «Compare profiles» · on the game page puts the game's three profiles side by side on your handheld: how much the frame rate, the watts and the battery change from one to the next.
• «Compare on other consoles» · on the game page the same game on other handhelds, to see where it runs best.
• «Compare consoles» · under Handhelds two spec sheets head to head, with no game involved.
• «Compare my consoles» · under Handhelds only between the ones in «My consoles», using your games.

7 · What each label means

• The origin line appears once per recipe, not as a label on every figure. It says where the recipe comes from: today, a RigTune estimate, or confirmed by people who have used it. When we have our own measurements, we will say so on each recipe.
• «Requires a constant connection» the game will not launch without internet, so it is no use to you on a trip.
• Valve's badge measures compatibility, not performance: that the game launches, the controller works and the text is legible. A game can carry the green badge and still not reach 60 frames.
• «Does not work on SteamOS» is almost always down to the anti-cheat, not because the game runs badly. With Windows on that same handheld it works.

8 · Offline Radar

Each game carries a notice for whether it needs internet to be played: never, only the first time, or always. The data comes from the Steam listing, not from our own test, and you can tell us if it launched offline for you.

9 · Why you sometimes get few games

If you tick that you would rather avoid games with third-party accounts, your selection comes out shorter than you expect.

Three groups are left out: the ones that force you to register with another service to play, the ones that only ask for it in online modes, and also the ones we have not checked yet.

That third group is what trims the list most. Checking whether a game asks for an account has to be done one at a time, and until we have looked at it we leave it out as a precaution: we would rather show you fewer games than slip you one that asks you to register somewhere else. And if you have told us you use SteamOS, the games its anti-cheat blocks on that system are dropped too.

10 · What people contribute

Every recipe has a button to say it worked for you. Pressing it brings up two optional questions, one tap each: whether the battery lasted as long as promised, and whether the frame rate held up.

Answering is voluntary and you can change it later. If you would rather not, close it and your confirmation still counts.

• Suggest changes if a recipe aims too low or too high, you can propose different values.
• Share a recipe it copies as text, an image or a link, so you can pass it on.
• Report a problem to flag a wrong figure or anything that does not add up on the page.
• Request a game if it is not in the catalog yet, you can ask for it.
• Data usage you can send how many megabytes a game used, handy for anyone playing on mobile data.

That is what it is for: it is the only way to know whether we get it right. With enough answers we will be able to say how often the estimate landed where it said it would, and fix the ones that did not.

11 · Community mods and patches

Each game has a section with mods and patches that can help on handhelds. They come from the community: we do not test or verify them.

We do not host them, do not distribute them and take no responsibility for what they do. Installing them is your decision, and you should check their original source first. Some may cause problems with anti-cheat systems in online games.

12 · Installing RigTune as an app

RigTune can be installed on your phone, on your computer and on the handheld itself, and it gets its own icon like any other app.

Once installed, the game pages you have already opened still show without a connection: handy on a train or a plane.

On Android and on desktop the browser offers to install it by itself. On iPhone and iPad you have to do it by hand with «Add to Home Screen», because that is Apple's call.

13 · What we do not do

We do not sell anything and we carry no advertising.

We do not recommend handhelds or say which is best: we show the specifications and you decide.

We do not copy recipes from other sites without permission.

And we do not pretend to know what we do not know: when a piece of data does not exist, we say so.