NVIDIA’s Shield Set-Top Box Sets Gaming Consoles on Fire

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The graphics card manufacturer has just unveiled at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco the next member of the Shield family: a set-top box that focuses on gaming.

SF’s GDN 2015 may not be the best scheduled event in the world, since it takes place at the same time as the Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any launches there worth reporting. The NVIDIA Shield set-top box carries a price tag of $200, which really may seem a lot for an Android TV-powered device. However, Jen-Hsun Huang emphasized at the press conference that included the launch of the product that the Shield set-top box brings together “revolutionary TV,” a “gaming console” and a “supercomputer.” Well, my other computer is a Cray, so I’m curious of what’s under the hood of this innovative thing.

Touted as the “world’s first 4K Android TV,” the NVIDIA Shield set-top box won’t run into any problems while streaming (via Gigabit Ethernet) or playing local content (via HDMI) at that resolution. After all, it includes the Tegra X1 super chip, which at the moment is the best SoC NVIDIA has to offer. In case the two connections aren’t available and users want to play content directly from the Shield, they can rely on the internal memory, and if those 16GB aren’t enough, then the microSD slot and the two USB 3.0 ports might come in handy.

The Shield supports voice commands either via the gamepad’s mic or via a remote control that’s not that different from the one of Amazon’s Fire TV. However, the new Shield isn’t as much about watching movies as it is about gaming. According to Huang, NVIDIA’s set-top box is 35 more powerful than the next such device, and twice as powerful as the Xbox One. That’s a really courageous statement, and the first reviews of the device should confirm or infirm that.

Android gaming is really catching up, and in the not-so-distant future, I can see mobile games competing head-to-head with their console counterparts. The Tegra X1 packs not only a lot of processing power, but also an extremely competitive GPU, so there will be no such things as glitches while gaming on the Shield set-top box. Some of the console games that got an Android port specifically for the launch of the new NVIDIA product include: Borderlands: The Presequel, Doom 3: BFG Edition, The Talos Principle, Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance. More titles will surely follow once the device is available.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Tegra K1-powered Shield tablet, or the Project Shield Tegra 4 portable Android gaming console.

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Next-gen mobile Kepler graphics demoed, said to make current tablet games look like ‘vintage 1999’ (video)

Nextgen mobile Kepler graphics will make current tablet games look like 'vintage 1999', says NVIDIA boss

Jen-Hsun Huang took to the stage during NVIDIA's recent investor day to show off an interesting video, which VentureBeat fortunately managed to capture. It's embedded after the break and consists of two contrasting parts: footage of a current "state of the art" iPad game that we don't immediately recognize, and then footage of Battlefield 3 running on unknown tablet hardware containing a next-gen Kepler mobile GPU -- possibly Logan. We're not sure Huang picked the strongest iPad example for comparison, but it's fair to say the difference is immediately obvious, with the Kepler section bearing dynamic lighting, particle effects, shadows and HDR lighting that appear to deliver a more console-level experience. All in all, it potentially looks like an NVIDIA chip to rival the coming breed of AMD Temash tablets, which we've already seen running Dirt Showdown at low wattages.

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Source: VentureBeat

NVIDIA updates its mobile roadmap: Logan and Parker, mobile SoCs packing Kepler and Maxwell GPUs

NVIDIA updates its mobile roadmap Logan and Parker, mobile SoCs packing Kepler and Maxwell GPUs

Thought the new Tegra 4i was the bees knees when it we saw it last month? Well, NVIDIA gave us a bit more info on the next steps in the Tegra roadmap, Logan and Stark Parker. It turns out that these next two mobile platforms will both utilize NVIDIA's CUDA technology, with Logan packing a Kepler GPU and Parker running a Project Denver 64-bit ARM CPU and a next-gen Maxwell GPU. Logan arrives early next year, while Parker won't be in devices until sometime in 2015.

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NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology and GeForce GRID gaming platform

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology

We're here at NVIDIA's GPU technology conference here in San Jose, California and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang just let loose that his company plans to put Kepler in the cloud. To make it happen, the company has created a virtualized Kepler GPU tech, called VGX, so that no physical connections are needed to render and stream graphics to remote locations. So, as Citrix brought CPU virtualization to put your work desktop on the device of your choosing, NVIDIA has put the power of Kepler into everything from iPads to netbooks and mobile phones.

While the virtualized GPU has application in an enterprise setting, it also, naturally, can put some serious gaming power in the cloud, too. Fear not, for Jen-Hsun's crew has created GeForce GRID technology that leverages Kepler's cloud capabilities to augment online gaming services like Gaikai by greatly reducing input latency by up to 30ms. Naturally, NVIDIA's not spilling the secret sauce that makes it happen, but you can read all about the new technology at the PR and source below.

Sean Buckley contributed to this post.

Continue reading NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology and GeForce GRID gaming platform

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announces cloud-based, virtualized Kepler GPU technology and GeForce GRID gaming platform originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA CEO suggests $199 Tegra 3 tablets in the summer

Always talkative NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is in the news yet again, this time telling the New York Times that his company's Tegra 3 hardware is incorporating enough cost saving that it could be in $199 Android tablets by this summer. Beyond the tantalizing thought of value-priced tablets with the horsepower of the Transformer Prime (perfect for that rumored price subsidized, ASUS-built and Google-branded slate, right?) there's also a shout out Tegra-powered Windows 8 slates and Sony's unannounced VAIO Chromebook that popped through the FCC. The NYT suggests its T25 chip could stand for Tegra 2.5 with a debut planned for Google I/O in June -- we'll find out then if this is misguided line drawing or a very educated guess.

NVIDIA CEO suggests $199 Tegra 3 tablets in the summer originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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