Nvidia announces its own portable gaming console

Fudzilla ^ | Monday, 07 January 2013 07:21 | Slobodan Simic

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

CES 2013: Meet Project Shield

During its press conference at CES 2013 in Las Vegas, Nvidia managed to pull out a big surprise and announced its own portable gaming console based on the new Tegra 4 chip, the Nvidia Project Shield.

The new Shield is pretty much a standard sized controller with a flip-up 5-inch 1280x720 294dpi Retina-class touchscreen with Nvidia DirectTouch tech. It features rechargeable batteries capable to keep up with up to 38 hours of gaming and up to 24 hours of HD video playback, great integrated audio system with custom bass reflex and integrated console-grade game controller. HDMI output, microUSB, microSDcard slot and a 3.5mm audio jack are also on board. It also features integrated 802.11n 2x2 MIMO game-speed Wi-Fi that provides high-bandwidth, ultra-fast wireless for seamless game streaming.

It is, at least currently, based on Android Jelly Bean OS, or according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, pure Android with no custom UI. Thank God for that.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And from Anandtech:

NVIDIA CES 2013 Press Event: Live Blog

Runs Android.....talks to TV .

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the comments to the Fudzilla article:

********************************EXCERPT***********************************

Jason Clouston
2 hours ago

It doubles as a Steam controller, when running Steam in Big Picture mode on a nice big widescreen TV. Read the article again. If you are not aware of Steam Big Picture mode, then go do some reading, as there is plenty of potential in this and I am sure there will be a market.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

On to Steam in Big Picture mode

**********************************************

Googling:

****************************************

Steam Big Picture Mode Now Live

Access Steam from your TV.

by Andrew Goldfarb

December 3, 2012

After a beta earlier this year, Valve has officially launched Steam’s Big Picture Mode. Available now, Big Picture Mode allows players to access Steam via their television, supporting controllers in addition to keyboard and mouse controls. Big Picture Mode allows players to access all of their existing games, including cloud files, Steam Workshop content, account information and preferences.

Big Picture is accessible by connecting a PC or Mac to a TV. The new mode is available worldwide in languages including German, French, Russian, Korean and Portuguese and offers a new web browser designed specifically for use with televisions and game controllers.

The browser is accessible from anywhere within Big Picture, including while playing games. According to Valve, the browser “supports Big Picture's new method of typing with a gamepad, which is useful for entering URLs, filling out forms, chatting, and other functions.”

To celebrate the launch, Valve has also put more than 30 games on sale for 75% until December 10th. For more on Big Picture, visit Valve’s official site.

[Marine_Uncle]

"It doubles as a Steam controller."
So. Is one to assume somewhere on the case there is a brass fixture where one can screw in a "steam valve". :)

[COBOL2Java]

[Berlin_Freeper]

They will mail us one for free so my wife can write a review, and we get to keep it so she can review games when they come out. If you are young and looking to start a career, get into that racket.

[for-q-clinton]

They need to switch the dpad with the left analog or I won’t even consider it.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

You and I need to get up to speed on all of this new fangled stuff.....

From Phoronix:

NVIDIA Announces Portable Gaming Platform

*********************************************

Posted by Michael Larabel on January 07, 2013

At the same time as officially announcing the NVIDIA Tegra 4, the Santa Clara company has also announced an Android-powered open gaming platform in the form of a portable gaming device that uses their latest-generation ARM hardware.

NVIDIA's new portable gaming project is codenamed "Project SHIELD" and is self-described as "a gaming portable for open platforms, designed for gamers who yearn to play when, where and how they want."

Project SHIELD can play both Android and Windows PC titles while being a pure Google Android device. The device supports streaming video games from PCs while doing remotely offloaded graphics rendering for systems with NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs.

The initial Project SHIELD device has a "console-grade controller", a 5-inch 1280x720 HD display, high-quality speakers, and is built around their Tegra 4 "Wayne" SoC.

More details on NVIDIA's Project SHIELD can be found from the press release and their product site for this portable hand-held PC gaming device.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More from Phoronix:

NVIDIA Officially Announces The Tegra 4 SoC

**************************************************

Posted by Michael Larabel on January 07, 2013

With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) taking place this week in Las Vegas, NVIDIA has officially rolled out their next-generation Tegra 4 ARM platform.

The NVIDIA Tegra 4 features a GeForce graphics processor with 72 cores, a new computational photography architecture, LTE support, 4K ultra-high-def video support, and is built around a quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor. The Tegra 4 was developed under the "Wayne" codename.

The Tegra 4 press release was entitled NVIDIA Introduces World's Fastest Mobile Processor. Other Tegra 4 details are available from the Tegra product page.

I am extremely excited for the NVIDIA Tegra 4 as this is one of the early SoCs using an ARM Cortex-A15. My benchmarks using a dual-core Cortex-A15 in the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual have shown the A15 is crazy fast and can easily beat the Tegra 3 and some x86 hardware. Having a quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 is going to extremely fast in the ARM world and I can't wait to begin benchmarking!

NVIDIA has already been publishing Tegra 4 Linux kernel support code since December. There's new Tegra 4 Linux patches as recently as yesterday. It looks like the Tegra 4 mainline Linux kernel support will come together with the Linux 3.9 and Linux 3.10 kernels.

[Future Snake Eater]

I agree. Who uses the d-pad these days?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

BBC :

Nvidia launches Tegra 4 and Shield gaming device

*************************************EXCERPT******************************************

Nvidia (NVDA) has some showcases ready. The Tegra 4 can push video to the latest and greatest 4K resolution TVs, meaning you could see the Tegra 4 chip running in the next generation of Smart TVs and streaming boxes.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From HardOCP....a PC Gaming enthusiasts website:

NVIDIA Announced Shield Gaming Device

*********************************EXCERPTS**************************************

Streaming from the desktop PC is a bit narrow at the moment as laid out by the specifications. As noted I would suspect this to broaden, actually quite a lot, as the product gets closer to hitting the store shelves which is expected in Q2'13.

System Requirements for PC Game Streaming*

GPU: NVIDIA® Kepler™-based GeForce GTX 650 (Desktop) or

GTX 660M (Notebook) or higher

CPU: Intel Core i5 or equivalent or higher

System Memory: 4 GB or higher

Software: GeForce Experience™ application and latest GeForce drivers

OS: Windows 7 or higher

Router: Router: 802.11a/g/n

(Recommended: 802.11n Dual Band / MIMO Router)

*System requirements are preliminary and may be updated closer to product availability

It seems as though the screen equipped on the Shield will be very nice for a native Shield experience as well. Tegra's image quality has always been impressive as well.

5" Retinal Display

SHIELD flips open to an integrated 5" 1280x720 HD multi-touch display. With 294 dpi and 921,600 pixels, SHIELD has the highest resolution and pixel density of any handheld gaming device. In addition, Tegra 4’s Direct Touch technology gives SHIELD touch response three times faster than other touch devices.

Discussion

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Shield website is up - http://shield.nvidia.com/

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the comments at HardOCP to the article:

***********************************EXCERPT*****************************************

Today, 01:30 AM

bman212121Limp Gawd, 1.4 Years

Status:

Quote:

Originally Posted by MetaKnight

This puts PSP to shame. However, if Shield is a bit of a hit to the wallet I doubt it's going to hurt sales as much as it hurt the PSP considering all of what this can do. People who look at this thing will undoubtedly say it's worth it if it isn't too extreme.

I would definitely agree with you on this one. I was excited about the PSP when it was first coming out, but it doesn't come anywhere near what this device can do. Even a 3DS is going to be put to shame by this device.

Real controls, real web browsing/email/applications, better graphics, no discs or cartridges to deal with, and the ability to play pc games over the device.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More from Anandtech:

More Details on NVIDIA's Tegra 4 & i500: 5th core is A15, 28nm HPL, UE Category 3 LTE

by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on 1/7/2013 1:30:00 AM
Posted in SOC , nvidia , Tegra 4 , Trade Shows , CES 2013 , Icera , GPUs

We just finished NVIDIA's CES press conference where it introduced the Tegra 4 SoC and Shield mobile gaming console. Immediately following the press event we snagged some more information about Tegra 4 and the NVIDIA i500 Baseband silicon:

- Tegra 4 is built on TSMC's 28nm HPm process (low power 28nm with High-K + Metal Gate)

Just confirmed that our initial information was incorrect, it's 28nm HPL (28nm low power with high-k + metal gates). The difference between HPL and HPM is a optimization for leakage vs. peak performance. This helps explain the 1.9GHz max frequency for the A15s in Tegra 4.

- The fifth/companion core is also a Cortex A15, but synthesized to run at lower frequencies/voltages/power. This isn't the same G in and island of LP process that was Tegra 2/3.

- The fifth/companion core isn't visible to the OS, it's not big.LITTLE but it'll work similarly to how Tegra 3 worked. This probably means no companion core in Windows RT. 

- The four Cortex A15s will run at up to 1.9GHz.

- NEW: die size is around 80mm^2, slightly bigger than Tegra 3 but on a much higher density process

- NEW: the shaders aren't unified, the majority are 20-bit pixel shader cores though. No idea on the ratio yet.

- dual-channel memory interface, LP-DDR3 is supported

- NVIDIA's i500 will launch with LTE UE Category 3 (100Mbps downlink) support, eventually we'll see an update to UE Category 4 (150Mbps downlink). 

- i500 will launch with carrier aggregation for WCDMA, no idea what 3GPP release.

Shield

- As far as Shield goes, I wanted to correct one thing about how the PC display streaming works. The PC will stream to the display directly, not through Shield. Shield will pass controller commands to the PC. 

- Shield will launch in Q2 at a price competitive with other mobile gaming systems and tablets. 

- All of the games during the Shield demo were 720p, except for one which was 1080p.

- Miracast is supported, but something better will come later.

[Marine_Uncle]

"You and I need to get up to speed on all of this new fangled stuff....."

I see no personal need to purchase any of this stuff. But by all means, Ernest, do enjoy following things as they progress. Put another way, don't let my dis-interest effect your spirit of enquirer into these things.