I can see myself using this if i have to take a dump in the middle of a raid. I'm tired of dragging my desktop out there every time. It's inconvenient and heavy
EDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Nvidia Shield will probably get you about double the performance of either of those, and for half the price tag.
It's not that Nvidia Shield is going to be dirt cheap or a great value. It's that Razer likes to charge super high-end price tags for not very good internal hardware in a slick form factor. Remember the $2800 Razer Blade "gaming laptop" that could barely outperform integrated graphics?
Originally posted by tkoreaper Don't get this trash and don't be fooled. You can do this with most tablet devices already. Get yourself a Nexus 10 and a PS2 controller and you're all set... That is, if you need something like this. The Nexus 10 packs more power and a higher resolution for an extremely resonable price.
You're wildly wrong. Both the Google Nexus 10 and Nvidia Tegra 4 use identical Cortex A15 cores. But the Nexus 10 has two of them, while the Tegra 4 has four of them.
On the GPU side, the Google Nexus 10 uses ARM Mali T604 graphics. The Tegra 4 graphics probably offer several times the performance of that, as that's ARM's bottom of the line in their new generation. Oh, and that's only several times the performance in programs that both can run. Tegra 4 supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0. While I didn't find anywhere that Nvidia explicitly stated the feature level of DirectX, since they support the full OpenGL 4, it's probably the full DirectX 11. Meanwhile, ARM Mali graphics don't support anything past DirectX 11 feature level 9_3 (basically DirectX 9.0c) and OpenGL ES 3.0.
EDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
Software like Kainy and Companies like Onlive and Gaikai have opened a pandora's boxs of sorts and the fruits of that are starting to roll out. Expect the bigger and better streaming gaming devices towards the end of the year.
This is just the tip of the iceberg Much more is coming your way lol.
Also, wait until you see some of the new consoles. Touchscreen Tablets have made a pretty big impact there. The limitations many controllers had in comparison to PC Mouse and Keyboard is changing.
Imagine a 20 Button controller that fits in your hands comfortably and easily with analog sticks and triggers to boot
EDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?
I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.
Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I'm positive towards this project overall. I think it has a great concept. Only a couple of things I don't prefer:
1.) The streaming tech is only available when the desktop uses a nVidia card. This sucks as I just bought my HD6870 less than a year ago. Also I'm not sure if the Steambox will sport a nVidia card. I was also anticipating that piece of tech.
2.) No problem with the clamshell design, but it seems to flip to up to 90 degrees only. I'm not comfortable with that viewing angle, considering the way I hold my controller. I wish it flips up to 180.
We got a Wii U for our 5 year old for Christmas. I have to say that I'm moderately impressed with the small screen on the controller: Yes, it's a little bit small, but honestly, with it connected to the controller, I wouldn't want it to be any larger.
The main draw of the Wii U is that the display on the controller can act independantly from the TV Screen - letting you do multiplayer without the split screen, or display secondary information (maps, special abilities, etc) on the touch screen, or use the touch screen as an augmented reality device in conjunction with the TV screen.
You won't get any of that with PC streaming. And for Android gaming it will be a small screen - a 7" tablet has more real estate (and could potentially have similar processing capability, and the ability to use a controller via Bluetooth). So yeah, I don't see this as really taking off.
The Wii U also uses a dedicated WiFi-N channel for feeding the audio/visuals to the controller, and it is not optimized for distance, but for throughput - it barely will work a room away. If the connection is unstable, the game will pause and it will warn you.
Apple does have Airplay that can mirror A/V over a home network (and has let iOS gamers play on a TV for a while now with an AppleTV 2+ or Airport Express) - it can support full HD, but it's proprietary, and relies on Intel QuickSync on the PC (and probably something proprietary but similar on their ARM products). If the connection is unstable, or bandwidth-starved (as WiFi, especially at HD streaming, can get), then you just get drop outs and lag/pauses - which sucks for gaming terribly.
So, trying to do this over a typical home network... if they are using proprietary nVidia compression (much like Apple uses QuickSync - and based on the requirement of an nVidia card I am guessing they are GPU accelerating this on the computer end) - yeah, you could probably make it work over a typical strong WiFi G connection, but a weak G or any B connection would still be out of the question for trying to stream 720p.
EDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?
I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.
Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Originally posted by Ridelynn We got a Wii U for our 5 year old for Christmas. I have to say that I'm moderately impressed with the small screen on the controller: Yes, it's a little bit small, but honestly, with it connected to the controller, I wouldn't want it to be any larger.The main draw of the Wii U is that the display on the controller can act independantly from the TV Screen - letting you do multiplayer without the split screen, or display secondary information (maps, special abilities, etc) on the touch screen, or use the touch screen as an augmented reality device in conjunction with the TV screen.You won't get any of that with PC streaming. And for Android gaming it will be a small screen - a 7" tablet has more real estate (and could potentially have similar processing capability, and the ability to use a controller via Bluetooth). So yeah, I don't see this as really taking off.The Wii U also uses a dedicated WiFi-N channel for feeding the audio/visuals to the controller, and it is not optimized for distance, but for throughput - it barely will work a room away. If the connection is unstable, the game will pause and it will warn you.Apple does have Airplay that can mirror A/V over a home network (and has let iOS gamers play on a TV for a while now with an AppleTV 2+ or Airport Express) - it can support full HD, but it's proprietary, and relies on Intel QuickSync on the PC (and probably something proprietary but similar on their ARM products). If the connection is unstable, or bandwidth-starved (as WiFi, especially at HD streaming, can get), then you just get drop outs and lag/pauses - which sucks for gaming terribly.So, trying to do this over a typical home network... if they are using proprietary nVidia compression (much like Apple uses QuickSync - and based on the requirement of an nVidia card I am guessing they are GPU accelerating this on the computer end) - yeah, you could probably make it work over a typical strong WiFi G connection, but a weak G or any B connection would still be out of the question for trying to stream 720p.
You can do streaming of a desktop session including gaming right now with modest hardware requirements. It's not really a super big deal. I think the major issues are the same issues that tablet/phone gaming has in general, which is a small screen and the touch controls don't translate well for regular PC gaming.
I think what Nvidia is adding is ease of installation and use, especially if it can be installed through Steam. It may even stream specific applications with launcher icons on the Android device rather than the whole desktop, which would be more convenient.
It's a really niche market though. Someone who wants to game, but who wants to do it in a room that isn't the computer room. I could see myself doing this, but I don't know that I'd buy a $250 device to do it with.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by GrayGhost79 Originally posted by QuizzicalOriginally posted by GrayGhost79Originally posted by BelegStrongbowLooks like they are competing with Razer http://www.razerzone.com/projectfionahttp://www.razerzone.com/switchbladeEDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious. And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
Fiona is a PC tablet, not an Android tablet. It's going to cost a lot more. How much more? How much does an i7 gaming rig cost right now? Now scale all the hardware down into a tablet, and add a multi-touch screen. It only needs to be slightly better than 720p, but still, it's a multi-touch screen built into the device. That much more.
It's two different markets. One is for the millions of people who bought a Nintendo handheld (Shield), and the other is for people who have more money than they really know what to do with (Fiona).
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
EDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?
I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.
Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
I was thinking for some reason that Fiona was going to be a Tegra 3. I'm not sure what I had in mind, but that's apparently wrong
Before you praise the performance of a Core i7 too much, stop to consider what Intel means by Core i7. Not fastest processor, period. Rather, either top end platform (Bloomfield, Gulftown, Sandy Bridge-E), which Fiona definitely won't get, or fastest in a given TDP. Right now, you can get a Core i7-3517U, which is a 1.9 GHz dual core. Fast for a 17 W chip, yes. But fast in an absolute sense? No.
Intel has announced that there will be 10 W Haswell chips, and it's highly probable that they'll make a Core i7 bin of 10 W Haswell chips. Will that be faster than Tegra 4? If you use the integrated graphics in it, it would probably win some things and lose others.
Fiona is reportedly going to have a discrete video card in it, too. Of course, given that this is Razer that we're talking about, it might be something like a GeForce GT 620M that gets smoked by integrated graphics. I'd personally bet on a GeForce card with a single Kepler SMX, which is what the new Grid K1 card uses.
But there's a heavy price to pay for too much performance in a tablet form factor. How much heat will it put out under heavy loads? 30 W? 40 W? How much will the tablet have to weigh to accommodate that? Will it zap the battery in under an hour, or will they go with a huge battery that just adds that much more to the weight?
Oh, and let's not forget the reported $1500 price tag.
-----
If you want a gaming tablet that uses considerably more power than is reasonable in a tablet, then AMD's Kabini at 15 W will probably look awfully nice. Not sure if anyone will make such a tablet. Or should. That's what Temash is for.
Originally posted by BelegStrongbowLooks like they are competing with Razer http://www.razerzone.com/projectfionahttp://www.razerzone.com/switchbladeEDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
Fiona is a PC tablet, not an Android tablet. It's going to cost a lot more. How much more? How much does an i7 gaming rig cost right now? Now scale all the hardware down into a tablet, and add a multi-touch screen. It only needs to be slightly better than 720p, but still, it's a multi-touch screen built into the device. That much more.
It's two different markets. One is for the millions of people who bought a Nintendo handheld (Shield), and the other is for people who have more money than they really know what to do with (Fiona).
That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
Originally posted by GrayGhost79 Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by GrayGhost79Originally posted by QuizzicalOriginally posted by GrayGhost79Originally posted by BelegStrongbowLooks like they are competing with Razer http://www.razerzone.com/projectfionahttp://www.razerzone.com/switchbladeEDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious. And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol. In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc. And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield. It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old. Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol... Fiona is a PC tablet, not an Android tablet. It's going to cost a lot more. How much more? How much does an i7 gaming rig cost right now? Now scale all the hardware down into a tablet, and add a multi-touch screen. It only needs to be slightly better than 720p, but still, it's a multi-touch screen built into the device. That much more. It's two different markets. One is for the millions of people who bought a Nintendo handheld (Shield), and the other is for people who have more money than they really know what to do with (Fiona). That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
Ubitus needs to actually work, and we need to know how much it's going to cost. Innovative cloud services aren't going to be free. The other thing is that Ubitus will require your television to work. Something like the Shield has the same advantage that the weird Wii U controller has - it doesn't require the television. Which I guess is the whole appeal of having a mobile gaming device. It's not taking up the television that everyone in the house wants to use. Plus, you can play games you already own. You don't have to rent them. You can continue that Fallout:New Vegas session from yesterday. I don't know how many people really want to do that...there may only be one person for all I know, but it is a difference in functionality. Plus, it can still stream stuff from Cloud services, if that kind of thing takes off.
The price is the key thing though. I don't see anyone buying a Shield for $300. I think even $250 is high, not because of the hardware but because of the market. But at $250 they could sell them, and if they convince some developers to make games that they sell through the Nvidia market (they have their own mobile market), they could probably get these things out the door. At $200 I think it's a no brainer.
Competing with Fiona is easy. Those things are going to cost a mint. They really will be for people with more money than they know what to do with. I'm sure they'll perform great, and they'll be a real tablet PC, but they are going to be expensive. If someone has the kind of money the Fiona is going to cost, they aren't going to bother looking at cheaper stuff anyway.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
EDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?
I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.
Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
I was thinking for some reason that Fiona was going to be a Tegra 3. I'm not sure what I had in mind, but that's apparently wrong
Before you praise the performance of a Core i7 too much, stop to consider what Intel means by Core i7. Not fastest processor, period. Rather, either top end platform (Bloomfield, Gulftown, Sandy Bridge-E), which Fiona definitely won't get, or fastest in a given TDP. Right now, you can get a Core i7-3517U, which is a 1.9 GHz dual core. Fast for a 17 W chip, yes. But fast in an absolute sense? No.
Intel has announced that there will be 10 W Haswell chips, and it's highly probable that they'll make a Core i7 bin of 10 W Haswell chips. Will that be faster than Tegra 4? If you use the integrated graphics in it, it would probably win some things and lose others.
Fiona is reportedly going to have a discrete video card in it, too. Of course, given that this is Razer that we're talking about, it might be something like a GeForce GT 620M that gets smoked by integrated graphics. I'd personally bet on a GeForce card with a single Kepler SMX, which is what the new Grid K1 card uses.
But there's a heavy price to pay for too much performance in a tablet form factor. How much heat will it put out under heavy loads? 30 W? 40 W? How much will the tablet have to weigh to accommodate that? Will it zap the battery in under an hour, or will they go with a huge battery that just adds that much more to the weight?
Oh, and let's not forget the reported $1500 price tag.
-----
If you want a gaming tablet that uses considerably more power than is reasonable in a tablet, then AMD's Kabini at 15 W will probably look awfully nice. Not sure if anyone will make such a tablet. Or should. That's what Temash is for.
I only praise the performance of the Fiona because I've actually held and used one
You really need to start getting out to the expo's and conventions. Theres a lot coming that really blows the old way of thinking out of the water. Theres a few tech bubbles poping this year and next in many different fields that are going to cause leaps in tech and the way we use it. Won't be the first time it's happened. These leaps are going to be a little intense though because they are happening in a number of fields.
After these leaps thers going to be another in 2015/16 due to some advances in the way energy is delivered to portable devices.
Right now there are devices that can send power to devices wirelessly. They've actually come a long way and are almost ready to be sold commercially. Right now it's still mainly in the hand of DIY enthusiasts, but companies are gearing up to mass produce. When that happens another tech bubble is going to pop and things are going to change fairly drastically again.
Originally posted by BelegStrongbowLooks like they are competing with Razer http://www.razerzone.com/projectfionahttp://www.razerzone.com/switchbladeEDIT: This is the product you guys should really be talking about, That nvidia thing looks like trash compared to the new Razer devices. I went to CES 2012 and demoed them. They are pretty wild.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol. In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc. And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield. It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old. Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
Fiona is a PC tablet, not an Android tablet. It's going to cost a lot more. How much more? How much does an i7 gaming rig cost right now? Now scale all the hardware down into a tablet, and add a multi-touch screen. It only needs to be slightly better than 720p, but still, it's a multi-touch screen built into the device. That much more. It's two different markets. One is for the millions of people who bought a Nintendo handheld (Shield), and the other is for people who have more money than they really know what to do with (Fiona).
That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
Ubitus needs to actually work, and we need to know how much it's going to cost. Innovative cloud services aren't going to be free. The other thing is that Ubitus will require your television to work. Something like the Shield has the same advantage that the weird Wii U controller has - it doesn't require the television. Which I guess is the whole appeal of having a mobile gaming device. It's not taking up the television that everyone in the house wants to use. Plus, you can play games you already own. You don't have to rent them. You can continue that Fallout:New Vegas session from yesterday. I don't know how many people really want to do that...there may only be one person for all I know, but it is a difference in functionality. Plus, it can still stream stuff from Cloud services, if that kind of thing takes off.
The price is the key thing though. I don't see anyone buying a Shield for $300. I think even $250 is high, not because of the hardware but because of the market. But at $250 they could sell them, and if they convince some developers to make games that they sell through the Nvidia market (they have their own mobile market), they could probably get these things out the door. At $200 I think it's a no brainer.
Competing with Fiona is easy. Those things are going to cost a mint. They really will be for people with more money than they know what to do with. I'm sure they'll perform great, and they'll be a real tablet PC, but they are going to be expensive. If someone has the kind of money the Fiona is going to cost, they aren't going to bother looking at cheaper stuff anyway.
Ubitus teaming up with google is far from the only streaming service being worked on. I mean right now, right this very moment you can stream to a tablet and play PC games and MMO's while using a 360 controller, Wii remote or PS3 controller or any number of different bluetooth controllers. You can use your phone as a controller for your tablet. There are cheap periphs that attach to your tablet and phones. Now exluding whats available now... numerous companies are pushing cloud gaming pretty hard and many of those are going to be announced this year with a few seeing launch late this year early next.
The Streaming side of the shield unit has a massive uphill battle. It's got to compete with 150-200 tablets and other devices. Kainy actually works very well and it's a $2 dollar app.
It's not just the companies and systems that will stream to TV's, it's also the hundreds of handheld systems out now and coming out that will stream as well. If you are on a budget these streaming devices will appeal far more than the shield unit because they simply offer more for less.
If the performance is what interests you then again... shield isn't the choice.
Where does the shield unit fit in?
Those on a budget have cheaper options
Those not on a budget and interested in performance have better options
That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
If you think Shield is going to be expensive, wait until you see what a great big TV costs.
As I see it, Shield is primarily for rendering things locally, with streaming games a minor niche use of it. Some people will get it primarily for streaming of course, but adding the streaming capability probably cost Nvidia basically nothing.
Sure, you can get higher end hardware for rendering games locally. It's called a desktop. The point of Shield is the small form factor.
I only praise the performance of the Fiona because I've actually held and used one
You really need to start getting out to the expo's and conventions. Theres a lot coming that really blows the old way of thinking out of the water. Theres a few tech bubbles poping this year and next in many different fields that are going to cause leaps in tech and the way we use it. Won't be the first time it's happened. These leaps are going to be a little intense though because they are happening in a number of fields.
After these leaps thers going to be another in 2015/16 due to some advances in the way energy is delivered to portable devices.
Right now there are devices that can send power to devices wirelessly. They've actually come a long way and are almost ready to be sold commercially. Right now it's still mainly in the hand of DIY enthusiasts, but companies are gearing up to mass produce. When that happens another tech bubble is going to pop and things are going to change fairly drastically again.
"Works in a controlled environment for a demonstration with software carefully selected to be things that will run well" is a long way away from "works in customers' houses on the games that they want to play".
That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
If you think Shield is going to be expensive, wait until you see what a great big TV costs.
This is why I'm starting to have trouble debating with you. Statements like the one I left. You counter non of my points yet come back with a statement like that knowing full well people are going to be buying TVs anyways.
I only praise the performance of the Fiona because I've actually held and used one
You really need to start getting out to the expo's and conventions. Theres a lot coming that really blows the old way of thinking out of the water. Theres a few tech bubbles poping this year and next in many different fields that are going to cause leaps in tech and the way we use it. Won't be the first time it's happened. These leaps are going to be a little intense though because they are happening in a number of fields.
After these leaps thers going to be another in 2015/16 due to some advances in the way energy is delivered to portable devices.
Right now there are devices that can send power to devices wirelessly. They've actually come a long way and are almost ready to be sold commercially. Right now it's still mainly in the hand of DIY enthusiasts, but companies are gearing up to mass produce. When that happens another tech bubble is going to pop and things are going to change fairly drastically again.
"Works in a controlled environment for a demonstration with software carefully selected to be things that will run well" is a long way away from "works in customers' houses on the games that they want to play".
First off the game I got to test was Skyrim. For me thats a fairly good test for a tablet gaming PC. If it can run Skyrim as well as it did and look as good as it did then guess what lol, I'm a happy camper
In any case, you are correct. Maybe we can compare your Shield hands on experience with my Fiona hands on experience. This might help us understand where each is coming from in the discussion.
Alright time for some misconceptions to be cleared up.
The Shield unit will NOT play PC games. It will only stream PC games and steam games from your PC and ONLY if you have an i5 or higher with an appropriate Nvidia GPU.
So again, it will NOT play PC games lol, only stream them.
This things primary purpose is a touchscreen tablet that plays Android games off of the google play market lol!
It can stream to your TV, so thats something but.. it's streaming from your PC to your TV through the Shield unit.
So it's best feature is that it will be like the Steam Box thats coming in the not to distant future, just not as good lol.
I only praise the performance of the Fiona because I've actually held and used one
You really need to start getting out to the expo's and conventions. Theres a lot coming that really blows the old way of thinking out of the water. Theres a few tech bubbles poping this year and next in many different fields that are going to cause leaps in tech and the way we use it. Won't be the first time it's happened. These leaps are going to be a little intense though because they are happening in a number of fields.
After these leaps thers going to be another in 2015/16 due to some advances in the way energy is delivered to portable devices.
Right now there are devices that can send power to devices wirelessly. They've actually come a long way and are almost ready to be sold commercially. Right now it's still mainly in the hand of DIY enthusiasts, but companies are gearing up to mass produce. When that happens another tech bubble is going to pop and things are going to change fairly drastically again.
"Works in a controlled environment for a demonstration with software carefully selected to be things that will run well" is a long way away from "works in customers' houses on the games that they want to play".
First off the game I got to test was Skyrim. For me thats a fairly good test for a tablet gaming PC. If it can run Skyrim as well as it did and look as good as it did then guess what lol, I'm a happy camper
In any case, you are correct. Maybe we can compare your Shield hands on experience with my Fiona hands on experience. This might help us understand where each is coming from in the discussion.
Two questions:
1) Was it rendering locally on the Fiona device, or was it rendering on some other device and streaming to the Fiona?
2) If it was streaming, then how far away was the device that was responsible for rendering the game?
The Shield unit will NOT play PC games. It will only stream PC games and steam games from your PC and ONLY if you have an i5 or higher with an appropriate Nvidia GPU.
So again, it will NOT play PC games lol, only stream them.
If the game is made using DirectX, then that's correct. If it's made using OpenGL and a language that can run on Android, then porting it to Android might well be easy or even trivial. If it gets ported to Android, then it's an Android game, and whether it will run locally on the Shield is just a question of whether Tegra 4 has enough performance for it.
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Nvidia Shield will probably get you about double the performance of either of those, and for half the price tag.
It's not that Nvidia Shield is going to be dirt cheap or a great value. It's that Razer likes to charge super high-end price tags for not very good internal hardware in a slick form factor. Remember the $2800 Razer Blade "gaming laptop" that could barely outperform integrated graphics?
You're wildly wrong. Both the Google Nexus 10 and Nvidia Tegra 4 use identical Cortex A15 cores. But the Nexus 10 has two of them, while the Tegra 4 has four of them.
On the GPU side, the Google Nexus 10 uses ARM Mali T604 graphics. The Tegra 4 graphics probably offer several times the performance of that, as that's ARM's bottom of the line in their new generation. Oh, and that's only several times the performance in programs that both can run. Tegra 4 supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0. While I didn't find anywhere that Nvidia explicitly stated the feature level of DirectX, since they support the full OpenGL 4, it's probably the full DirectX 11. Meanwhile, ARM Mali graphics don't support anything past DirectX 11 feature level 9_3 (basically DirectX 9.0c) and OpenGL ES 3.0.
Fiona is a different beast all together. The unique aspect of Nvidias "Console" is the streaming. As far as streaming "Consoles" go this is bottom of the barrel, over the next few months you will start getting news on the ones you need to be watching out for. Theres many more coming of varying quality. So will be an easy pass, others are a bit more ambitious.
Software like Kainy and Companies like Onlive and Gaikai have opened a pandora's boxs of sorts and the fruits of that are starting to roll out. Expect the bigger and better streaming gaming devices towards the end of the year.
This is just the tip of the iceberg
Much more is coming your way lol.
Also, wait until you see some of the new consoles. Touchscreen Tablets have made a pretty big impact there. The limitations many controllers had in comparison to PC Mouse and Keyboard is changing.
Imagine a 20 Button controller that fits in your hands comfortably and easily with analog sticks and triggers to boot
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console?
I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal.
Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I'm positive towards this project overall. I think it has a great concept. Only a couple of things I don't prefer:
1.) The streaming tech is only available when the desktop uses a nVidia card. This sucks as I just bought my HD6870 less than a year ago. Also I'm not sure if the Steambox will sport a nVidia card. I was also anticipating that piece of tech.
2.) No problem with the clamshell design, but it seems to flip to up to 90 degrees only. I'm not comfortable with that viewing angle, considering the way I hold my controller. I wish it flips up to 180.
We got a Wii U for our 5 year old for Christmas. I have to say that I'm moderately impressed with the small screen on the controller: Yes, it's a little bit small, but honestly, with it connected to the controller, I wouldn't want it to be any larger.
The main draw of the Wii U is that the display on the controller can act independantly from the TV Screen - letting you do multiplayer without the split screen, or display secondary information (maps, special abilities, etc) on the touch screen, or use the touch screen as an augmented reality device in conjunction with the TV screen.
You won't get any of that with PC streaming. And for Android gaming it will be a small screen - a 7" tablet has more real estate (and could potentially have similar processing capability, and the ability to use a controller via Bluetooth). So yeah, I don't see this as really taking off.
The Wii U also uses a dedicated WiFi-N channel for feeding the audio/visuals to the controller, and it is not optimized for distance, but for throughput - it barely will work a room away. If the connection is unstable, the game will pause and it will warn you.
Apple does have Airplay that can mirror A/V over a home network (and has let iOS gamers play on a TV for a while now with an AppleTV 2+ or Airport Express) - it can support full HD, but it's proprietary, and relies on Intel QuickSync on the PC (and probably something proprietary but similar on their ARM products). If the connection is unstable, or bandwidth-starved (as WiFi, especially at HD streaming, can get), then you just get drop outs and lag/pauses - which sucks for gaming terribly.
So, trying to do this over a typical home network... if they are using proprietary nVidia compression (much like Apple uses QuickSync - and based on the requirement of an nVidia card I am guessing they are GPU accelerating this on the computer end) - yeah, you could probably make it work over a typical strong WiFi G connection, but a weak G or any B connection would still be out of the question for trying to stream 720p.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
You can do streaming of a desktop session including gaming right now with modest hardware requirements. It's not really a super big deal. I think the major issues are the same issues that tablet/phone gaming has in general, which is a small screen and the touch controls don't translate well for regular PC gaming.
I think what Nvidia is adding is ease of installation and use, especially if it can be installed through Steam. It may even stream specific applications with launcher icons on the Android device rather than the whole desktop, which would be more convenient.
It's a really niche market though. Someone who wants to game, but who wants to do it in a room that isn't the computer room. I could see myself doing this, but I don't know that I'd buy a $250 device to do it with.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console? I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal. Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol.
In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc.
And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield.
It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old.
Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
Fiona is a PC tablet, not an Android tablet. It's going to cost a lot more. How much more? How much does an i7 gaming rig cost right now? Now scale all the hardware down into a tablet, and add a multi-touch screen. It only needs to be slightly better than 720p, but still, it's a multi-touch screen built into the device. That much more.
It's two different markets. One is for the millions of people who bought a Nintendo handheld (Shield), and the other is for people who have more money than they really know what to do with (Fiona).
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I was thinking for some reason that Fiona was going to be a Tegra 3. I'm not sure what I had in mind, but that's apparently wrong
Before you praise the performance of a Core i7 too much, stop to consider what Intel means by Core i7. Not fastest processor, period. Rather, either top end platform (Bloomfield, Gulftown, Sandy Bridge-E), which Fiona definitely won't get, or fastest in a given TDP. Right now, you can get a Core i7-3517U, which is a 1.9 GHz dual core. Fast for a 17 W chip, yes. But fast in an absolute sense? No.
Intel has announced that there will be 10 W Haswell chips, and it's highly probable that they'll make a Core i7 bin of 10 W Haswell chips. Will that be faster than Tegra 4? If you use the integrated graphics in it, it would probably win some things and lose others.
Fiona is reportedly going to have a discrete video card in it, too. Of course, given that this is Razer that we're talking about, it might be something like a GeForce GT 620M that gets smoked by integrated graphics. I'd personally bet on a GeForce card with a single Kepler SMX, which is what the new Grid K1 card uses.
But there's a heavy price to pay for too much performance in a tablet form factor. How much heat will it put out under heavy loads? 30 W? 40 W? How much will the tablet have to weigh to accommodate that? Will it zap the battery in under an hour, or will they go with a huge battery that just adds that much more to the weight?
Oh, and let's not forget the reported $1500 price tag.
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If you want a gaming tablet that uses considerably more power than is reasonable in a tablet, then AMD's Kabini at 15 W will probably look awfully nice. Not sure if anyone will make such a tablet. Or should. That's what Temash is for.
That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
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And how exactly do they propose to make a higher end "console" for streaming games over the Internet when the crippling factors are latency and bandwidth, neither of which depend on the console? I don't know how Project Shield will compare to what we'll see in the next several months, but in raw performance for rendering games locally, it's massively ahead of anything else on the market today. And that's a big deal. Speaking of other things coming in the next several months, AMD has again confirmed that there will be Temash quad cores (contrary to rumors that it would be dual-core only), and now also that Temash is coming in the first half of this year. Rumors say AMD will launch it at CeBIT in March.
I know, I know, you don't want to see streaming gaming take hold. Problem is, it's coming wether you want it to or not lol. In any case higher end systems includes things like better build quality, larger screens, etc. And as far as the Shield being the best on the market right now as far as raw performance and processing power)... lol it's going to be competing with things like the Fiona. Sure, fiona and others aren't available yet, but neither is Shield. It's low end junk lol. It's neat, but it's more of a novelty thing you could give to your 6 year old. Fiona's i7 > Shields Tegra 4 lol...
Fiona is a PC tablet, not an Android tablet. It's going to cost a lot more. How much more? How much does an i7 gaming rig cost right now? Now scale all the hardware down into a tablet, and add a multi-touch screen. It only needs to be slightly better than 720p, but still, it's a multi-touch screen built into the device. That much more. It's two different markets. One is for the millions of people who bought a Nintendo handheld (Shield), and the other is for people who have more money than they really know what to do with (Fiona).
That was in direct response to Quizzicals claim that it was going to offer more power and performance. It's not, not by a long shot. It's trying to do to many things at once and is failing to fully utilize any of it.
With streaming the hardware Shield uses is redundant and makes it cost more than other devices meant to stream gaming in a similar fashion, if you want local performance you won't be grabbing a shield unless it's for your kid lol.
The shield is going to be competing with the likes of Google and Ubitus that are going to stream your console games and MMO's straight to google TV's, no system required lol. It's going to be competing with hand held portable systems that stream with larger screens and better controls for less money.
On the local side it's competing with actual devices meant to provide the content locally such as the fiona.
The shield simply can't compete in price with the streaming systems and can't compete with the performance systems in power and performance. It's in limbo before it even left the gate.
Ubitus needs to actually work, and we need to know how much it's going to cost. Innovative cloud services aren't going to be free. The other thing is that Ubitus will require your television to work. Something like the Shield has the same advantage that the weird Wii U controller has - it doesn't require the television. Which I guess is the whole appeal of having a mobile gaming device. It's not taking up the television that everyone in the house wants to use. Plus, you can play games you already own. You don't have to rent them. You can continue that Fallout:New Vegas session from yesterday. I don't know how many people really want to do that...there may only be one person for all I know, but it is a difference in functionality. Plus, it can still stream stuff from Cloud services, if that kind of thing takes off.
The price is the key thing though. I don't see anyone buying a Shield for $300. I think even $250 is high, not because of the hardware but because of the market. But at $250 they could sell them, and if they convince some developers to make games that they sell through the Nvidia market (they have their own mobile market), they could probably get these things out the door. At $200 I think it's a no brainer.
Competing with Fiona is easy. Those things are going to cost a mint. They really will be for people with more money than they know what to do with. I'm sure they'll perform great, and they'll be a real tablet PC, but they are going to be expensive. If someone has the kind of money the Fiona is going to cost, they aren't going to bother looking at cheaper stuff anyway.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I only praise the performance of the Fiona because I've actually held and used one
You really need to start getting out to the expo's and conventions. Theres a lot coming that really blows the old way of thinking out of the water. Theres a few tech bubbles poping this year and next in many different fields that are going to cause leaps in tech and the way we use it. Won't be the first time it's happened. These leaps are going to be a little intense though because they are happening in a number of fields.
After these leaps thers going to be another in 2015/16 due to some advances in the way energy is delivered to portable devices.
Right now there are devices that can send power to devices wirelessly. They've actually come a long way and are almost ready to be sold commercially. Right now it's still mainly in the hand of DIY enthusiasts, but companies are gearing up to mass produce. When that happens another tech bubble is going to pop and things are going to change fairly drastically again.
Ubitus teaming up with google is far from the only streaming service being worked on. I mean right now, right this very moment you can stream to a tablet and play PC games and MMO's while using a 360 controller, Wii remote or PS3 controller or any number of different bluetooth controllers. You can use your phone as a controller for your tablet. There are cheap periphs that attach to your tablet and phones. Now exluding whats available now... numerous companies are pushing cloud gaming pretty hard and many of those are going to be announced this year with a few seeing launch late this year early next.
The Streaming side of the shield unit has a massive uphill battle. It's got to compete with 150-200 tablets and other devices. Kainy actually works very well and it's a $2 dollar app.
It's not just the companies and systems that will stream to TV's, it's also the hundreds of handheld systems out now and coming out that will stream as well. If you are on a budget these streaming devices will appeal far more than the shield unit because they simply offer more for less.
If the performance is what interests you then again... shield isn't the choice.
Where does the shield unit fit in?
Those on a budget have cheaper options
Those not on a budget and interested in performance have better options
We aren't the only ones scratching our heads. The folks at Gamasutra are asking the same questions:
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/184393/Opinion_Nvidia_Shield_is_a_confused_mishmash_of_current_trends.php#.UOufHm-umKc
If you think Shield is going to be expensive, wait until you see what a great big TV costs.
As I see it, Shield is primarily for rendering things locally, with streaming games a minor niche use of it. Some people will get it primarily for streaming of course, but adding the streaming capability probably cost Nvidia basically nothing.
Sure, you can get higher end hardware for rendering games locally. It's called a desktop. The point of Shield is the small form factor.
"Works in a controlled environment for a demonstration with software carefully selected to be things that will run well" is a long way away from "works in customers' houses on the games that they want to play".
This is why I'm starting to have trouble debating with you. Statements like the one I left. You counter non of my points yet come back with a statement like that knowing full well people are going to be buying TVs anyways.
First off the game I got to test was Skyrim. For me thats a fairly good test for a tablet gaming PC. If it can run Skyrim as well as it did and look as good as it did then guess what lol, I'm a happy camper
In any case, you are correct. Maybe we can compare your Shield hands on experience with my Fiona hands on experience. This might help us understand where each is coming from in the discussion.
Alright time for some misconceptions to be cleared up.
The Shield unit will NOT play PC games. It will only stream PC games and steam games from your PC and ONLY if you have an i5 or higher with an appropriate Nvidia GPU.
So again, it will NOT play PC games lol, only stream them.
This things primary purpose is a touchscreen tablet that plays Android games off of the google play market lol!
It can stream to your TV, so thats something but.. it's streaming from your PC to your TV through the Shield unit.
So it's best feature is that it will be like the Steam Box thats coming in the not to distant future, just not as good lol.
Two questions:
1) Was it rendering locally on the Fiona device, or was it rendering on some other device and streaming to the Fiona?
2) If it was streaming, then how far away was the device that was responsible for rendering the game?
If the game is made using DirectX, then that's correct. If it's made using OpenGL and a language that can run on Android, then porting it to Android might well be easy or even trivial. If it gets ported to Android, then it's an Android game, and whether it will run locally on the Shield is just a question of whether Tegra 4 has enough performance for it.