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Gaming Nvidia officially unveils Shield tablet and controller

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Combatus, 22 Jul 2014.

  1. Combatus

    Combatus Bit-tech Modding + hardware reviews Lover of bit-tech Super Moderator

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  2. ZeDestructor

    ZeDestructor Minimodder

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    Interesting.. Something to battle the Nexus 7...
     
  3. Hustler

    Hustler Minimodder

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    Just how exactly is playing games on it via PC streaming a practical feature when there is no built in control pad like the first one?

    ..please don't say the stand because that's only of any use when on a hard flat surface..like a desk, which kind of defeats the point of it.

    At least with the first one you could sit in a comfortable chair, bed or on the bog whilst taking a dump.
     
  4. Impatience

    Impatience Minimodder

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    Maybe they'll make an attachment arm that holds the tablet onto the controller? Although this has a much larger screen than the first.. It'd be almost like holding a netbook for gaming otherwise!

    Also, they're planning on releasing this one out the US.. Which is good!
     
  5. Stelph

    Stelph Minimodder

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    Article says UK pricing isnt announced but the Nvidia site shows it as starting at £239 and the controllers £49.99.

    Obviously the UK price includes VAT which the US price doesn't but its a little higher than I was expecting which is a shame, at that price the 32GB 4G version looks a more appealing buy as well as its £299

    http://shield.nvidia.co.uk/buy-now/
     
  6. Dogbert666

    Dogbert666 *Fewer Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Yep - article updated with UK pricing :)
     
  7. [USRF]Obiwan

    [USRF]Obiwan What's a Dremel?

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    To bad WHDI is not mainstream yet. You could practicly take your wireless keyboard/mice/controller and send signal from you big gaming pc to you 60" screen.
     
  8. Impatience

    Impatience Minimodder

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    I wonder if there'll ever be a cross-over with Sony's streaming service for games.. Could be the perfect PS replacement for those exclusives.. And it's portable! ;)
     
  9. ChaosDefinesOrder

    ChaosDefinesOrder Vapourmodder

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    I thought DirectX was only available for Windows and Xbox? Does DirectX run on Android?
     
  10. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    I'm struggling to think of a reason why someone would buy this over any other Android tablet, granted I'm no Android expert so maybe someone who knows more than me can detail what makes this so different.
    Isn't streaming from a PC to an Android device something you can already do ? Are there no high end Android tablets on the market ?
     
  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Aside from the WiFi-connected low-latency gamepad (an extra £50) and Nvidia's proprietary game streaming functionality, there's the spec: the Nvidia Tegra TK1 is considerably more powerful than any other tablet chip currently on the market. That's not Nvidia PR talking: I've got a Jetson TK1, based on the same chip, on my desk right now. It's a beast. At £230, the Shield Tablet is cheaper than the Nexus 7 or iPad Mini with Retina Display, and I can tell you now that the K1 chip beats either of those on pure CPU power alone, before developers start taking advantage of Android CUDA support and do exciting things with the 192 Kepler GPU cores.

    In summary: why would you buy any other Android tablet over this?
     
  12. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Well i did say i was no Android expert :D

    So hardware wise it's more powerful than your run of the mill Android tablet, and I'm guessing the Steaming that i read about using Limelight is no good because of latency.
    Following on from knowing it's a lot more powerful and lower latency, does that mean it could be used as a capable Steam Machine, or do Linux games not run on Android.

    Sorry for so many question but i did say i know little of Android :blush:
     
  13. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    What happends if this one starts all it's cores at once? Recharge every two hours or so?
     
  14. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    SteamOS doesn't run on ARM chips (yet), and games written for Linux would need porting to Android (same as software written for Windows 8 needs porting to Windows RT, if you like.
    I can't see at-a-glance if anybody knows how big the battery is, but I can make some logical guesses. The current Nexus 7 has a 3,950mAh battery; its predecessor had a larger 4,325mAh unit. Let's say the Nvidia Shield Tablet has a 4,150mAh battery. Running the CUDA particle simulations on the Jetson, I couldn't make it draw more than around 7W; running a highly intensive financial calculation that stressed both CPU and GPU cores I got that to 14W. The tablet will be more heavily optimised, though, and won't have the wastefulness of an AC-DC converter in the mix. Let's say heavy load will be no more than 7W. Simple maths suggests the battery will be drained from full in just over half an hour.

    EDIT: Concentrating so hard on typing on my bizarre new keyboard, I completely effed up the above - comparing amp-hours to wattage. Ignore all that, it's bollocks. Using Corky's 19.75Wh figure from below, a 7W load should run for nearly four hours - a much better runtime!
     
    Last edited: 22 Jul 2014
  15. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    The Nvidia Shield web site says it has 19.75 Watt Hours, not that i know what that means in real terms.
    Some reviews i have read say it will last for 10 hours of HD video playback, and another claims Nvidia said we'll get around 3-5 hours of high-end gaming.
     
  16. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Depends if has access to andriod store gareth to answer the question of would you buy another andriod tablet.

    If it does not then yes I would buy another tablet.

    If the shield hub is the only place to download apps then you would need to want it specifically to game on.

    There 11 designed for games would not make me stump up the price thats for sure. DD on tablet never really worked on an Ipad properly the game was super scaled down compared to the pc version of the same game that it was basically 2 different games.

    Are we going to get the full scale PC version for tablets now that would be something.

    Corkys posted watt hrs would measure up to the 3-5hrs of playback of high end gaming. Depends if thats streamed or played though. Streaming will not use alot of power id imagine.
     
  17. forum_user

    forum_user forum_title

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    Hmm, if it won't allow me to play Steam tablet enabled games away from home then I'm not interested.
     
  18. XXAOSICXX

    XXAOSICXX Minimodder

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    I really, really do not see the market for this :/

    The controller+tablet idea sounds great but in reality is highly situational. I have a Sony Tablet S + PS3 controller and the inconvenience of needing to stand the tablet up to play anything really does kinda defeat the object of it being a tablet, i.e. a handheld device, since I'm not, ya know, holding it in my hands.

    The streaming-from-your-Nvidia-enabled-gaming-PC idea sounds great too - except having recently built a pretty powerful SteamBox and wrangled with in-home streaming from my main gaming rig, I can tell you now that streaming over Wi-Fi is an experience from hell if you actually value being able to see what you're telling your character/whatever to do in realtime as you're pressing the buttons on your controller. In the end I actually ran Cat5e throughout my house and pulled out an old gigabit switch in order to get the games to stream smoothly and not look hideous - and that's just at 720p over a LAN! The idea that you're gonna be out and about with your tablet streaming games from home over Wi-Fi/WAN is simply not realistic.

    And let's be honest...if you CAN play Android games off the Play Store, as an avid gamer, you are not going to be satisfied with what is still a very poor offering....I can count the number of games I've played and enjoyed on my various android phones and tablets on one hand...actually strike that...one finger. Carmageddon.

    As mentioned above, too, battery life soon becomes a problem, so you need to be plugged in if you're actually gaming for more than a few minutes. So, the ideal place to play games on a Shield is a flat surface - so you can put your tablet on a stand, near a power socket, so you can keep it topped up, over a strong and reliable wi-fi connection on the same LAN as your main gaming PC. I know....I'll sit at my computer desk and stream the games from the PC two feet away! Perfect :D

    :/
     
  19. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Isn't the ability to stream via Wi-Fi dependent on the wireless standard being used ?
     
  20. ModSquid

    ModSquid Multimodder

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    But can it pla...oh, s0d it.

    As a proof of concept/prototype, it's a good idea. As a HIGH-END Android tablet, it's also probably not so bad. As anything else, including a viable gaming replacement, it sounds dung hampers.
     
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