Second screen gaming on PC

[bitWISE]

http://shield.nvidia.com/play-pc-games

$299 for a dedicated android gaming system seems ridiculous to me, but their PC streaming stuff makes it pretty interesting. It's obviously meant for local WiFi use, but I wonder how the latency would feel if you had something like Google Fiber at home.

[Eraser]

I think the streaming from your PC to the Shield is only supported if you have specific nVidia hardware on your PC and only for a limited set of games that support this*. Especially the latter makes this feature pretty much worthless.

*) not sure if the game has to be modified by the developer to support shield or if shield has to add support for the game though. It is a significant difference.

[seremtan]

rubbish

in every possible way

[bitWISE]

I think the streaming from your PC to the Shield is only supported if you have specific nVidia hardware on your PC and only for a limited set of games that support this*. Especially the latter makes this feature pretty much worthless.

*) not sure if the game has to be modified by the developer to support shield or if shield has to add support for the game though. It is a significant difference.

It does say that only certain Geforce cards are supported, and none of the mobile versions. It features some games but I'm not sure they are just marketing partners or actually part of some supported library. I don't see why you would need to bother game devs. Just bake in remote KVM support with automatic downscaling of the video into the geforce drivers.

[Transient]

I think I'll play PC games on my PC, TYVM.

[Eraser]

I think the streaming from your PC to the Shield is only supported if you have specific nVidia hardware on your PC and only for a limited set of games that support this*. Especially the latter makes this feature pretty much worthless.

*) not sure if the game has to be modified by the developer to support shield or if shield has to add support for the game though. It is a significant difference.

It does say that only certain Geforce cards are supported, and none of the mobile versions. It features some games but I'm not sure they are just marketing partners or actually part of some supported library. I don't see why you would need to bother game devs. Just bake in remote KVM support with automatic downscaling of the video into the geforce drivers.

It actually says so in the page you linked to:

"With a compatible GeForce GTX GPU and a variety of supported PC games, you can open a whole new world of PC gaming."

So I guess you can play only a limited set of games on Shield through the streaming features. So obviously someone has to somehow make sure the game is supported by the technology. It might just be that the developers of the game need to implement some sort of Shield API so that the game can be used with the tech. Also remember that it isn't just video coming out of the PC to the device. There's also sound coming out of it and it needs to be able to receive the control inputs from the device as well and send that to the game.

The reason I'm bringing up the issue is that if the game developer is required to make modifications, the limited list of supported games will most likely remain limited, because it's up to each individual developer to decide if they want to support Shield. The investment of time and cost may not be worth it for them. However, if nVidia needs to do something to support a game, then the chances of the library of supported games growing rapidly is a lot larger, because nVidia needs to support those games in order to make Shield an interesting device for PC gamers.

[Ryoki]

Interesting piece of kit though.

[seremtan]

Interesting piece of kit though.

no it isn't

"hey PC gamers - how would you like to play a tiny fraction of your games on a tiny screen using a console controller?"

how about no

[Ryoki]

Oh absolutely, it sounds mostly useless and wtf would i want with it.

It's interesting because it's a device making use of the hardware from another device through the speed of internets. Which is something i for one simply never considered... can we have smaller electronic shit if we just hook up a big old box of computer in the house somewhere that does all the calculating? We could go totally future style and make transparent 100% screen mobile phones.

[obsidian]

Making PC games more like consoles. Fuck that.

[Eraser]

Erm, it doesnt connect through internet as far as I'm aware. If it would, then it would be a major selling point they fail to mention on their promotional website.

[seremtan]

Oh absolutely, it sounds mostly useless and wtf would i want with it.

It's interesting because it's a device making use of the hardware from another device through the speed of internets. Which is something i for one simply never considered... can we have smaller electronic shit if we just hook up a big old box of computer in the house somewhere that does all the calculating? We could go totally future style and make transparent 100% screen mobile phones.

i would love to be able to use my 26" monitor wirelessly

i mean, that's what we're talking about here isn't it: wireless screen, keyboard and mouse combo

[MKJ]

oh I thought this thing connected to your tv. well fuck that then.

PS3 (and 4) has something called "Remote Play", in which you can use your Vita as a screen while your PS3 does the computing. That way you can play your ps3 games where ever in and around the house, while your spouse is watching Biggest Wedding Cakes on TLC.
I approve.

[Eraser]

PS3 (and 4) has something called "Remote Play", in which you can use your Vita as a screen while your PS3 does the computing. That way you can play your ps3 games where ever in and around the house, while your spouse is watching Biggest Wedding Cakes on TLC.
I approve.

Shield is the same. Your PC does the computing, the Shield does the displaying

[bitWISE]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/31/ ... eld-review

So it isn't limited to specific games but it still sucks.

When Shield streaming is working optimally, it's fantastic. You can play games with no noticeable lag and largely uncompressed audio and video. Any game in your Steam library can be accessed through the Shield via remote access to Big Picture Mode, though the Shield's custom UI offers shortcuts to a smaller collection of supported titles, like BioShock Infinite, Metro Last Light, and others. The novelty of being able to play high-end games effectively on a small portable is unquestionably awesome, but the experience is ruined by a number of technical issues.

[Eraser]

Damn, if it really works with any Steam game then I'd be genuinely interested, but the reports of the technical issues make me weary. That's a real shame, I might've actually bought this if it worked flawlessly. Hopefully it's a software issue and they can work out the flaws the next few months.

[U4EA]

It's Tegra 3, not worth it at all today at its current price point. Maybe a year ago. Maybe.

[Eraser]

Ehm no, it's Tegra 4

[U4EA]

Awhups, right you are.

[Eraser]

Which is kind of irrelevant, because, like the article bitWise linked to states, the gaming ecosystem for which this has been designed does not exist (yet).

There really isn't that big a library of Android games that are suitable for a controller, optimized for Tegra chipsets and demand that kind of processing power at all. So as an Android gaming system, the hardware is nice, the software just isn't there yet.

I'm be interested in it's game streaming capabilities though, so I'm disappointed that it doesn't work that well. Many people dismiss it as nonsensical, but the thing I'm dealing with is that I want to buy a high end PC and have that sit somewhere in a room in my house where I can play in private. I'm also a bit of a couch tiger though, so I love to rest my bum on the couch, put my feet on the table and just be gaming on my TV. I don't want those two experiences to be supplied by two separate platforms (as in, having to buy the same game twice and then still not being able to share savegames).
Now, this 5" screen doesn't exactly compare to a TV, but I can still game on the couch, which is nice enough. Ideally the Shield would have an HDMI output so I could hook it up to the TV, but I don't think it has. (edit: correction, it does have HDMI out dammit. This would be the perfect device for me, were it not for the fact that it just sucks).
The only alternative I see now is to buy a laptop and simply hook that up to my TV like I do now, but laptops are usually more expensive and less powerful than similar PC setups.

[U4EA]

Well, you can can also hook up a proper gaming PC to a TV via HDMI. I did that for two months last year. I had a cushioned wood lap table/rest which was wide enough to fit my wireless KB/mouse. Couch gaming was definitely possible, although you wouldn't be as competitive in multiplayer FPS games or anything. It was fun for a while, but ultimately I preferred a smaller/closer screen for MMO/RPG interfaces. I was playing Rift at the time.

[Eraser]

Yeah I don't feel much like mouse/keyboarding on my couch. The problem I also have (and this may sound silly but really, it isn't) is that I don't want to play games while my 2 year old daughter is running around in my living room, especially not violent ones.

So this Shield solution would be nice, because I could game in my private room directly behind the PC, or use Shield while sitting on the couch in the living room. I could hook it up to the TV and have a big screen experience that way. Additionally, due to the handheld form-factor of the device itself, I could play violent videogames in the living room without my daughter looking at the screen.

[U4EA]

That's not silly at all dude, it sounds very sensible.

[Eraser]

Lag has me worried a bit though:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/31/nvid ... ld-review/

And to be honest, I'm still not convinced that it works with all Steam games. Reading the promo website again, and it's pretty unambiguous about there being specific "supported" games.

[U4EA]

AnandTech says that PC streaming works "surprisingly well" with minimal input latency, great video quality, but audio that lags behind. They did only test one game though [Borderlands 2]. I'd wait a bit and see how well it's doing within a month or two, after the early adopters put it through the ringer.