Tweaktown : Nvidia Jetson (Tegra K1)

[TrulyUncouth]

be careful this is a very misleading data, these "free" games are not free... They are trial versions with in app purchase to really enjoy. That's why European commission asked Google and Apple to change the naming of these so called "free" games. In September, they won't be called Free anymore...

That was my entire point. AMS was trying to make it sound like billions of dollars each year are spent in the mobile space on traditional games, so its obvious that major devs will bring their AAA titles to Android because they know they will make money. I was pointing out that all this money supposedly spent on games on Android/iOS is really just casual gamers buying tokens and crap to keep their very simple facebook style games running.

Its not such an obvious jump to think all those moms buying points to keep Candy Crush going will buy the first Call of Duty released on Android.

But, once good GPUs are widely available, and that is only a matter of time, you will see better games which utilise the GPU fully.

Will we though? Game devs might move the bar up a little bit over time- but we have to keep in mind that the low end did not necessarily stay at $150 phones and improve specs- people want a phone just good enough to work for the lowest price. Walmart still sells phones with a single core 800mhz processor and Amazon's best-selling no-contract phone is a $55 dual-core 1ghz A9 equivalent.

If people keep buying the cheapest phone that meets their needs and consumers continue to spend their mobile gaming dollars on chintzy casino-like games then I don't know why any traditional AAA dev would put a game onto Android. The mobile space has had huge penetration and massively improving graphics power since I first got a smartphone in mid-2009 but the most played games would easily run on that original device.

Hence my original point that if NV wants to get full Console/PC quality games into Android they need to provide some help and incentive to big devs to move their games over. I think they would have been smart to offer the Ouya people an upgrade to Tegra 4 instead of letting them use Tegra 3 and release a poor-performing product. And now I think their best course would be to convince Valve to port Steam/their library to Tegra zone as Android apps or release a SteamOS console of their own with Valve helping on converting their core apps over to Tegra/Arm.

You're all ignoring the most important factor- Android TV. Google are finally backing the "Android games console" concept, so we may finally see some worthwhile games.

I hope to god you are right. The question is if google will enforce some minimum standard for these Google TVs. I have the original Google TV that actually used an intel processor. I bought it when Logitech finally gave up and sold them for $99 a pop. It was a side experiment that they talked up and promised would be fixed but ultimately they screwed over everyone who bought into it.

Ultimately if they let $50 Google TVs be sold with massively under-powered processors then I don't see how that will be a huge drive for devs to build for Android. I hope it works and we get some real games- but I will believe it when I see it.

 

[sontin]

nVidia said that the Shield Tablet is able to archive the 2,2GHz on all 4 core at the same time. That would be a huge step forward from Tegra 4 which was only able to stay within 5W with only 1,4GHz and an active cooling solution...

 

[xpea]

Hence my original point that if NV wants to get full Console/PC quality games into Android they need to provide some help and incentive to big devs to move their games over.

But Nvidia is doing it. SHIELD Tablet will have at launch 11 games using full OpenGL driver, not the crippled Android OpenGL ES version:
Anomaly 2
Chuck's Challenge 3D: Reloaded
Dungeon Defenders Eternity
Flyhunter: Origins
Half-Life 2
Portal
Pure Chess
Rochard
Trine 2 (pre-loaded on Shield Tablet)
The Talos Principle
War Thunder

These beefed up versions are exclusive to TK1. Not bad for a start, you can't say Nvidia tries hard

 

[sontin]

And have you looked at the performance numbers? 31FPS in Mannhatten and up to 74FPS in T-Rex benchmark. That thing is nearly 3x faster than anything else...

 

[TrulyUncouth]

You left out simply the most impressive game they got- Mount and Blade. Color me VERY impressed by that get. This is absolutely the sort of thing NV needs to do to make people like me interested. I don't play war thunder personally but it is a very popular free to play that a number of my friends would be tempted to buy a shield for- Especially if it performs better than windows tablets.

I think the preliminary reviews of TK1 version of Portal/HL2 on mipad still puts them behind the baytrail implementation but the gap has clearly closed quite a bit or enough to be a wash- I am unsure on this one.

I am very happy with NV's moves in this space. A few more big pushes getting titles like Trine and M+B and they will easily be in my consideration. Unfortunately, I actually bought the upgraded T100 this morning on Amazon. I got the one with the Z3775 faster CPU and GPU- hopefully I won't regret my purchase too much.

Edit: Man they broke my heart when they showed titanfall in the video, really made me think they somehow got Titanfall ported- they should be more clear on whats playing and whats streaming, I could see people getting confused.

For those that haven't played it or keep up with games, Trine 2 is amazing and we can only hope they go back and port the original Trine also- both are just topnotch games. Also, Mount and Blade is one of the better PC games I've played in the last 5 years. If you pick up a shield you owe it to yourself to play Trine and buy M+B... exciting times.

But Nvidia is doing it. SHIELD Tablet will have at launch 11 games using full OpenGL driver, not the crippled Android OpenGL ES version:
Anomaly 2
Chuck's Challenge 3D: Reloaded
Dungeon Defenders Eternity
Flyhunter: Origins
Half-Life 2
Portal
Pure Chess
Rochard
Trine 2 (pre-loaded on Shield Tablet)
The Talos Principle
War Thunder

These beefed up versions are exclusive to TK1. Not bad for a start, you can't say Nvidia tries hard

 

[ams23]

I think the preliminary reviews of TK1 version of Portal/HL2 on mipad still puts them behind the baytrail implementation but the gap has clearly closed quite a bit or enough to be a wash- I am unsure on this one.

Shield tablet runs Half Life 2 and Portal using the full OpenGL code path (not OpenGL ES code path) smoothly at 1080p with high details, which is way beyond what anything else can deliver right now in a very thin, small, fanless tablet (the Mi Pad has similarly capable hardware, but the OpenGL ES port of these two games is not optimized, and results in CPU utilization spikes as high as ~ 100% in some instances).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxXEs1yPxYM&list=UUHuiy8bXnmK5nisYHUd1J5g

 

[ams23]

nVidia said that the Shield Tablet is able to archive the 2,2GHz on all 4 core at the same time. That would be a huge step forward from Tegra 4 which was only able to stay within 5W with only 1,4GHz and an active cooling solution...

That is pretty remarkable for an 8" thin and fanless tablet. According to NVIDIA, due to the magnesium thermal shield, the heat dissipation of Shield tablet is about 2x better than most other thin fanless tablets, which means that thermal throttling is kept to a minimum.

 

[TrulyUncouth]

Got a link that shows 1080p or high details confirmed? I would be VERY surprised if they pulled off both of those. Especially since the Digital Foundry review was not super optimistic on its gaming prowess. Quotes and link below:

We saw Half-Life 2 and Portal running on the device, with significant image quality improvements over the same code running on Tegra 4, giving a far more PC-like experience.

We also saw Frozenbyte's Trine 2 - bundled free with the device - running at 720p in the same 30fps ballpark as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game (how it stands up to the console versions is something we'll look at more closely next week). Early code for War Thunder also looked very impressive, though we hope that optimisations can produce a more consistent frame-rate.

Finalising our Tegra K1 MiPad review, we loved the hardware but found games performance to be lacklustre.

I think the big story here is the games they got. War THunder, Trine, Mount and Blade... Those are full fat PC titles that I would not have guessed NV would have managed this time around. And that controller, talk about kicking Valve's ass after starting over a year later. Say what you will about NV they deliver on good hardware and do it QUICK.

I will be excited to see what res/settings HL2/Portal actually run at since that is a good cross-reference to windows gaming.

Shield tablet runs Half Life 2 and Portal using the full OpenGL code path (not OpenGL ES code path) smoothly at 1080p with high details, which is way beyond what anything else can deliver right now in a very thin, small, fanless tablet (the Mi Pad has similarly capable hardware, but the OpenGL ES port of these two games is not optimized, and results in CPU utilization spikes as high as ~ 100% in some instances).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxXEs1yPxYM&list=UUHuiy8bXnmK5nisYHUd1J5g

 

[monstercameron]

nice, so Nvidia is gonna port the entire steam back catalog, Where do I sign up?

 

[xpea]

sorry but this guy at Digital Foundry is typical of certain class of journalist, they live in their bubble and write stuff totally out of context, sometimes showing their own contradiction.
For example as you said:

Finalising our Tegra K1 MiPad review, we loved the hardware but found games performance to be lacklustre.

it's still at least 2 times faster in GFX performance than anything else in the market. So if SHIELD tablet is "lacklustre", how to consider other devices ? useless ? To correctly evaluate a product, a good journalist must put it the context of the market, relative to competition.

then 2 sentence latter, the same guy adds:

it's clear that Nvidia has made real efforts here to be push boundaries on the platform - it's a state-of-the-art Android device with exclusive functionality like Twitch and GameStream, while titles like Trine 2 suggest that last-gen console visuals and gameplay may well be within reach on ultra-power-efficient hardware.

now it's not "lacklustre" anymore

The truth is that SHIELD tablet is not perfect, TK1 is only the first Nvidia SoC with good GPU and Android is not ready for prime time gaming. But and it's an important but, its by far the fastest android tablet on earth and it's a bold move in the right direction that is pushing the boundaries of android gaming. It should be praised for that, not get some piss poor meh from disconnected journalist.
All in one, Android L can't arrive too soon, with TM1 Erista, I believe it will be the killer couple that will put Android gaming in a good position. Can't wait but in the meantime, I will get a SHIELD tablet ASAP :biggrin:

 

[monstercameron]

sorry but this guy at Digital Foundry is typical of certain class of journalist, they live in their bubble and write stuff totally out of context, sometimes showing their own contradiction.
For example as you said:

it's still at least 2 times faster in GFX performance than anything else in the market. So if SHIELD tablet is "lacklustre", how to consider other devices ? useless ? To correctly evaluate a product, a good journalist must put it the context of the market, relative to competition.

then 2 sentence latter, the same guy adds:

now it's not "lacklustre" anymore

The truth is that SHIELD tablet is not perfect, TK1 is only the first Nvidia SoC with good GPU and Android is not ready for prime time gaming. But and it's an important but, its by far the fastest android tablet on earth and it's a bold move in the right direction that is pushing the boundaries of android gaming. It should be praised for that, not get some piss poor meh from disconnected journalist.
All in one, Android L can't arrive too soon, with TM1 Erista, I believe it will be the killer couple that will put Android gaming in a good position. Can't wait but in the meantime, I will get a SHIELD tablet ASAP :biggrin:

I would say android gaming is lacklustre...
/ot lol sound like an AMDer now with the next big thing

 

[ams23]

Got a link that shows 1080p or high details confirmed? I would be VERY surprised if they pulled off both of those.

It is what it is (ie. 1080p and high details). Go look through the videos on youtube and read the previews and you will find it somewhere in there.

 

[ams23]

@ xpea: Digital Foundry was not talking about Shield tablet, as review samples haven't made their way to reviewers yet. Most likely they were talking specifically about the hasty OpenGL ES Android ports of Half Life 2 and Portal, which were not well optimized and have CPU utilization spikes that cause CPU usage to go through the roof and cause stuttering. If you read the original Mi Pad review, you will see that they are complaining that most games are not locked at 60fps or do not run at "retina" resolution (which is probably an unreasonable request in the first place, because most iOS games certainly do not run at "retina" resolution either) or have more CPU overhead than they should. That has little or nothing to do with the TK1 hardware per se. The vast majority of Android games should be pretty smooth on the Mi Pad (and I linked to several examples of that earlier in the thread), but obviously there is some ways to go before an Android device can truly replicate the gameplay experience of a good console. Let's not forget that these are thin fanless tablets that can be enjoyable for gaming, they are not full blown dedicated game consoles.

 

[TrulyUncouth]

It is what it is (ie. 1080p and high details). Go look through the videos on youtube and read the previews and you will find it somewhere in there.

So... no source at all then... as I suspected

I don't understand the drive to just make up facts to try and help "your side". If they pulled off 1080p high settings and you had read it somewhere then you would find it to make a point. I have googled and, sadly, binged but found nothing saying 1080p/high on their new HL2 version. If you truly read or saw it somewhere, please let me know because I really would like to read about it.

I have been very complimentary of what NV has achieved here, but we don't need to make stuff up so it seems even better.

@ xpea: Digital Foundry was not talking about Shield tablet, as review samples haven't made their way to reviewers yet. Most likely they were talking specifically about the hasty OpenGL ES Android ports of Half Life 2 and Portal, which were not well optimized and have CPU utilization spikes that cause CPU usage to go through the roof and cause stuttering. That has nothing to do with the TK1 hardware really. The vast majority of Android games should be very smooth on the Mi Pad (and I linked to several examples of that earlier in the thread).

Assuming I read you right, they are referring to the performance of the full OpenGL port that they talk about in their mipad review.

it's still at least 2 times faster in GFX performance than anything else in the market. So if SHIELD tablet is "lacklustre", how to consider other devices ? useless ? To correctly evaluate a product, a good journalist must put it the context of the market, relative to competition.

then 2 sentence latter, the same guy adds:
Quote:
it's clear that Nvidia has made real efforts here to be push boundaries on the platform - it's a state-of-the-art Android device with exclusive functionality like Twitch and GameStream, while titles like Trine 2 suggest that last-gen console visuals and gameplay may well be within reach on ultra-power-efficient hardware.
now it's not "lacklustre" anymore

I think the lacklustre refers to the fact that they didn't feel the actual games got the performance boost they expected from the benchmarks. You can think a tablet is the best android tablet ever made, but still say that its worse in practice compared to its contemporary Win8 tablets. You could think that it doesn't have enough CPU grunt to use all of its GPU power, leading to lackluster performance even though in benchmarks that cut out CPU or memory bandwidth it performs very well. My point being that you are framing his comments in a way that doesn't really fit with what I believe his points were. He even makes a point that things not made specifically for TK1 simply don't benefit much due to diminishing returns- and a few titles ported/made specifically for TK1 don't perform where he would hope they might.

He makes a big point of saying he is impressed with what NV has pulled off, similar to my comments to the same- They did a hell of a job with getting software kickstarted. He is simply doing his job as a journalist in looking at this tablet in context to its competition.


I think you are too harsh on the guy. This is the same guy who did the "Can you really game on a T100" and the mipad review- he is steeped in this niche's hardware and is much more qualified than any of us to say what he expected and if the performance was lackluster in comparison.

 

[ams23]

So... no source at all then... as I expected

Wow, you are still posting in this thread? Ok, then prove me wrong (I can already tell you that you won't be able to, because I am correct, I know what I saw/heard, and you have no clue what you are talking about here).

 

[TrulyUncouth]

Wow, you are still posting in this thread? Ok, then prove me wrong (I can already tell you that you won't be able to, because I am correct, I know what I saw/heard, and you have no clue what you are talking about here).

I have an anti-gravity machine- prove me wrong... I bet you can't.

See the silliness of claiming something off the wall then saying its true until someone disproves it?

You, sir, are the one who doesn't know what he is talking about. I have read a ton of the coverage on this release because I think this space is the most exciting for gaming right now- and I didn't see any claims of 1080p/high except out of you.

I will very happily admit I am wrong if you have anything to back up your unsubstantiated claim. I hope to god they managed 1080p/high because then I would have very high hopes for future source ports. Imagine L4D2 running well on a friggin tablet- I salivate.

Being as you seem ignorant(the actual meaning of the word, not insulting) of how burden of proof works, here is a link to wikipedia that should explain it well enough. If you have any questions, definitely feel free to PM me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof

 

[ams23]

You are a piece of work. Denial is not just a river in Africa you know

I did find the link. An NVIDIA rep clearly confirmed that Half Life 2 and Portal are rendered on Shield tablet at 1080p resolution using the full OpenGL code path (ie. higher IQ compared to the OpenGL ES2 code path), all with much higher framerates than Shield portable (with Tegra 4).

Surely if I can find the link on my own, then you can find it too on your own. Try not to stay up all night wading through the river

 

[monstercameron]

I will very happily admit I am wrong if you have anything to back up your unsubstantiated claim. I hope to god they managed 1080p/high because then I would have very high hopes for future source ports. Imagine L4D2 running well on a friggin tablet- I salivate.

it runs on my dell venue pro 8...so tk1 can def do it!

 

[TrulyUncouth]

You are a piece of work. Denial is not just a river in Africa you know

I did find the link. An NVIDIA rep clearly confirmed that Half Life 2 and Portal are rendered on Shield tablet at 1080p resolution using the full OpenGL path (ie. higher IQ compared to the OpenGL ES path), all with much higher framerates than Shield portable (with Tegra 4).

Surely if I can find the link, you can find it too on your own. Try not to stay up all night

So, no source then... I accept your admission that it wasn't said.

Clearly the lesson on burden of proof didn't stick. Fact of the matter is, I have seen no confirmation of either high settings or 1080p from anyone... and since you are claiming some source you refuse to post I think any sane person can assume it is not both. Again, I wish/hope it is but until someone confirms it I don't just make it up and say it is so.

Until someone reputable comes out and says it is confirmed to be 1080p and high settings- I will assume it is not.

Did you hear that Intel has managed to run Titanfall in 4k, ultra settings on Merrifield? There is this cool video showing it with proof, but you have to find it yourself

Edit: And don't think I didn't notice that you are now not saying its high settings... perhaps you did actually find something but you realized you misspoke- and instead of admitting you are trying to change your statement. Its ok, we all make mistakes

 

[TrulyUncouth]

it runs on my dell venue pro 8...so tk1 can def do it!

We'll see. I broke down and got the upgraded T100 with the slightly faster cpu/gpu and I'll have it tomorrow. I'm gonna try Skyrim/Fallout definitely and atleast a few source games. watching all the portal gameplay has made me wanna replay it also.

I will definitely share my experiences.

 

[ams23]

LOL, ignorance is bliss with people like you OK, I will give you two full days to find the link (this isn't rocket science after all, and it took me ten minutes to find it when I decided to look for it). If you aren't bright enough to find it after two days, then I will post the link for you.

 

[TrulyUncouth]

LOL, ignorance is bliss with people like you OK, I will give you two full days to find the link (this isn't rocket science after all, and it took me ten minutes to find it when I decided to look for it). If you aren't bright enough to find it after two days, then I will post the link for you.

What were you saying about denial not being a river in africa? So, just to be clear you are claiming that a rep says the game is in 1080p and high settings...

I am not going to look for the video, but I will post here again in 2 days asking for it, since it looks like you know you are wrong and hoping I will forget

Haha, I love people on the internet.

Back on the tablet. I have been watching more about it, of course, and this controller looks absolutely amazing. Does anyone know if it is completely locked into the Shield hardware? Is there a controller for windows that also uses the direct wifi and manages a headphone port? I am seriously enamored with that controller.

Hell, all of the hardware in general- front-facing speakers seem like such a no-brainer on phones and tablets I don't understand why HTC are the only ones to do it. Is this a matter of being sued if you do what HTC does? Throw in the integrated stylus and how well it looks like it works and I might just pick one up to futz around with and let my wife try to use taking notes for school.

As for anyone complaining about the price of the controller(Can't remember if it was here or another site), I think its a bargain at the same price as an X1 controller. Color me impressed.

 

[ams23]

LOL, good, I will see you in two days. You know and I know this is not a battle you can win

 

[toughtrasher]

Is it too late to get popcorn? Nerds everywhere fighting about everything yay

 

[monstercameron]

We'll see. I broke down and got the upgraded T100 with the slightly faster cpu/gpu and I'll have it tomorrow. I'm gonna try Skyrim/Fallout definitely and atleast a few source games. watching all the portal gameplay has made me wanna replay it also.

I will definitely share my experiences.

skyrim is a nonstarter.