Perhaps some of our readers remember the NVIDIA Shield handheld game console, which was presented at the international electronics exhibition CES-2013, or the Android gaming tablet with the same name, presented a year later. So, for such people (we hope for everyone else too), the news that the Shield gadget family has now been expanded with an Android home prefix will probably be interesting.
According to Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA Shield is the first Android-based gaming device to have 4K resolution. The device is controlled by a gamepad and a compact bidirectional Bluetooth remote control, equipped, among other things, with a micro-USB connector for recharging.
However, it’s not the remote control that makes the NVIDIA Shield home gaming console special. What makes it special is the NVIDIA Tegra X1 processor. This chip has an incredible performance, quite sufficient to withstand the loads of really serious and "heavy" applications, like the same Unreal Engine Elemental demo shown at the last CES. The new NVIDIA Shield console works seamlessly with 4K resolution, and, according to the company's CEO, it is 35 times more powerful than Apple TV.
If you believe NVIDIA, its new set-top box is not only “virtually silent in operation,” but it can also argue in performance with previous-generation consoles. And how are things actually with the games themselves for this console? Everything is wonderful here!
The NVIDIA Shield Hub application, developed specifically for Shield devices, will not only help you find Android games optimized for these devices, but will also soon offer ports of high-quality console games and PC games. Within the framework of the presentation, such titles as Resident Evil 5, Tales from the Borderlands, Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, Doom 3 BFG Edition, Metal Gear Rising; Revengance and many others.
During the presentation, the creators of games such as Borderlands and The Talos Principal appeared on the stage and showed fresh images from ported versions. Following them, he shared his work and Tim Willits of ID Software, who showed the version of Doom 3 BFG Edition ported to NVIDIA Shield. All these games quite cheerfully ran on the new console.
But the main question was left finally: is it possible to play Crysis on NVIDIA Shield? Jensen Huang proudly replied: yes! Crysis 3, launched on the console, not only shows good performance, but also promises support for multiplayer!
Now about the issue price. The NVIDIA Shield Android home console will go on sale in May this year at a price of $ 199. For this price, the buyer will receive the console itself with 16 GB of permanent memory, as well as a special game controller.
Of course, several Android ports of once popular PC games seem to someone insufficient. And for such people, NVIDIA has a solution. It is called NVIDIA Grid and in fact allows you to play any games on the console, at the expense of remotely installed cloud servers. The fact is that this technology is not unusual, but in the case of NVIDIA, the Grid is officially a full-fledged service offering a subscription, and not just a project that we could see before from other companies.
The Grid service will be offered in two versions: a premium subscription will allow streaming video to your prefix at 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second. A cheaper subscription model will offer 720p resolution and 30 frames per second. In both cases, you get unlimited access to an incredible variety of games. In addition, there will be an opportunity to instantly buy AAA-titles in fact a few seconds after their official release. The company also plans to launch this service in May, when sales of the home console will begin. At the start, access to 50 game titles is planned. Within 6 months from the moment of launch, at least 50 more games will be added.
As explained in NVIDIA, Grid is not just a simulation of console games. According to Huang, from a technical point of view, the service is the most powerful gaming platform available today. Technically, he is right: in the end, powerful remote servers will deal with graphics processing. Of course, people will not get direct access to them, but in fact these virtual machines are much more powerful than any modern console.
The article is based on materials .
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