Nvidia Shield Tablet

[Clevelandagain]

Hmm



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCLsvEpwHs

The full OpenGL render path has higher details than the OpenGL ES2 render path. You can even see it from NVIDIA's promo Shield tablet video.



Of course it does. Higher framerates and less thermal throttling in Shield tablet should lead to a better gameplay experience compared to most other tablets.

Ah, he is not saying high settings though. He simply says OpenGL render path. I can run HL2 right now on OpenGL and set it to low settings... Unless I missed something in the video then this doesn't show high settings.

I think I may not have gotten my point across on the performance front. If the vast majority of android games are already 60fps locked even on last gen flagship phones... then what do you really gain with somehing even 10x better?

The guy at eurogames used the best term, diminishing returns. A simplification to demonstrate- perhaps you get the best bang for your buck simply buying a $150 tablet since the user experience is perceptibly the same more than 95% of the time.

 

[ams23]

Hmm

I am going to keep this short and sweet. The Android full OpenGL port does not have user adjustable settings like the original PC version, but it is obvious that level of detail (in addition to resolution for rendering) is far superior to the OpenGL ES2 port just from viewing the video promo of Shield tablet.

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

 

[Clevelandagain]

Hmm

I am going to keep this short and sweet. The Android full OpenGL port does not have user adjustable settings like the original PC version, but it is obvious that level of detail (in addition to resolution for rendering) is far superior to the OpenGL ES2 port just from viewing the video promo of Shield tablet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VohrddwVQqg&index=2&list=UUHuiy8bXnmK5nis

Oh, I think I may have misled- I am not in any way saying it is running low settings.

My entire point is that when you said 1080p and high settings for Portal and HL2 of course the implication is it is running the equivelant of the PC version's high settings. Noone has confirmed, as far as I can tell, what level of settings it is set to run at. I think the game looks good, I was just curious what PC-level equivelant they managed to reach since that is what it seemed you were talking about.

 

[ams23]

Half Life 2 on the PC allows one to adjust shader detail, texture detail, water detail, model detail, shadow detail, motion blur, bloom, HDR, AA, AF, etc.

 

[Clevelandagain]

Half Life 2 on the PC allows one to adjust shader detail, texture detail, water detail, model detail, shadow detail, motion blur, bloom, HDR, AA, AF, etc.

I am not the one who simplified it to "High settings" to begin with. But I think using the words "High settings" definitely makes people think it is running all the options that have a "high" setting on high.

I think any sane person would say high would mean Model/Texture/Shader/Shadow all on high, water detail to reflect all, and HDR enabled. You could argue about filtering and AA- those aren't included in what many mean when they say "high settings" but I think everyone here assumed you meant those other settings turned to high.

I guarantee that when you put high settings noone thought "I bet he means it looks better than the Tegra 4 version and also runs at 1080p". To each their own, but I think saying its high settings is a bit misleading.

 

[ams23]

Hmm

Does this look like anything other than "high" levels of details for model/textures/shaders/water/shadows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxXEs1yPxYM&list=PLZHnYvH1qtOaXkPTN_Ku8lrWKaJBeJp2o

I think not.

Perhaps you can contact someone at NVIDIA to clarify since you are so concerned about it.

 

[Clevelandagain]

Nvidia aren't the ones claiming anything about high settings. I am speaking to, as far as I can tell, the only person in the world with enough access to know it is high settings.

Listen, if someone got on here saying the Surface Pro 3 could run Crysis 3 well at high settings we would all ask for proof. If that guy then said "Well, its higher settings than on Surface Pro 2, and anyways I think it looks like high settings- contact MS if you are so worried about whether its true or not" we would all rightly think that guy simply didn't have proof of his assertion.

I didn't mean to turn this into a page-long diversion from the shield but you just keep coming back with unrelated stuff that doesn't really speak to your original claim.

 

[ams23]

Well gee, logically it wouldn't make sense to say "low" or "medium" settings (nor would it make sense to do a full OpenGL port for a very advanced and powerful graphics processor only to dumb down level of detail), so "high" settings it must be (and I think the video linked to above makes it very obvious that the level of detail settings are high).

 

[Clevelandagain]

Well gee, logically it wouldn't make sense to say "low" or "medium" settings (nor would it make sense to do a full OpenGL port for a very advanced and powerful graphics processor only to dumb down level of detail), so "high" settings it must be.

Couldn't disagree more. It absolutely makes sense for them to port to full OpenGL then try many different combinations of settings until they hit their target framerate. We don't know what combo of settings they ended up on that gave them this performance- and probably won't know until someone compares it directly against the PC version.

I think it would logically make sense to make no claims you don't have proof of, but that is just me.

In your shoes I simply would have said "And HL2/Portal are running at 1080p and higher settings than the Tegra 4, they both look great" All of that is true or subjective opinion... however saying both are running at "high settings" is trying to imply it is on par with high settings on PC. That was my entire point.

I think the game looks good, but I am very interested to see what settings, if any, they had to dial back to get playable framerates.

I think I've made my point and will try my best not to respond any more to your posts.

 

[ams23]

Try different combinations of settings to hit a target framerate? Hah. Shield tablet is not a game console, so it makes little sense to target a fixed 60fps framerate. It is so obvious that Half Life 2 and Portal are using high quality details settings on Shield tablet. It is what it is, and NVIDIA has the luxury of doing so with this device.

 

[Roland00Address]

The 32GB Nexus 7 + LTE (unlocked with AT&T Sim) is $349, which is only $50 less than the 32GB Shield Tablet + LTE (unlocked with AT&T Sim).

I can care less for lte, so trying to tell me that I should spend more for lte when I have wifi at home and a phone with a hotspot capability is not doing anything to convince me. There is a reason why I used the wifi model prices.

Honestly they should have a 32gb and 64gb as starting options. Yes that will raise the price a couple of dollars or lead to a couple dollars less margins, but these should be the options they are pushing. They are artificially using storage to make you get the lte model which cost $400 instead of 319 for a 32gb model without lte.

 

[ams23]

I can care less for lte, so trying to tell me that I should spend more for lte when I have wifi at home and a phone with a hotspot capability is not doing anything to convince me. There is a reason why I used the wifi model prices.

Well you were comparing apples to oranges (16GB Nexus 7 with WiFi to a 32GB Shield tablet with LTE+WiFi). The difference in list price between 16GB Nexus 7 WiFi and 16GB Shield tablet WiFi is $70, the difference in list price between 32GB Nexus 7 WiFi and 32GB Shield tablet LTE+WiFi is $130, and the difference in list price between 32GB Nexus 7 LTE+WiFi and 32GB Shield tablet LTE+WiFi is $50. And for the extra money, one gets a microSD card slot, stylus, larger screen, improved heat dissipation, and much higher CPU/GPU performance. I'm not saying it is worth it for everyone (clearly it is not), but other than not having more WiFi only options, you get what you pay for more-or-less.

I do completely agree that it would have been nice to see more WiFi-only options. Hopefully NVIDIA considers releasing at least one or two more SKU's at some point.

 

[Clevelandagain]

Try different combinations of settings to hit a target framerate? Hah. Shield tablet is not a game console, so it makes little sense to target a fixed 60fps framerate. It is so obvious that Half Life 2 and Portal are using high quality details settings on Shield tablet. It is what it is, and NVIDIA has the luxury of doing so with this device.

So you don't think they tested the settings they ended up with to make sure they hit 30-60 fps? I think you don't understand how they choose the settings they do.

And again, it is clearly not obvious since you are the only person in all the videos, articles, and even comment sections that I've seen claim high settings for HL2/Portal. When/if you find proof you should make a post about it- until then I think we should stop wasting the time of people in this thread with baseless claims.

As for the wifi/lte 16gb/32gb I mostly agree with ams on this one. Its not really fair to compare 32gb lte against 32gb wifi- that really is apples and oranges- however on the flipside Nvidia has removed our ability to make any other easy comparison right now.

Why they made a kickass tablet like this, then gimped it with 16gb base storage we'll never know. My only hope is they come out with a 32gb base 64gb upgrade update a few months into the shield's life- if they want to be seen as the premium SOC like they say then they should up this storage ASAP.

 

[ams23]

So you don't think they tested the settings they ended up with to make sure they hit 30-60 fps? I think you don't understand how they choose the settings they do.

LOL, I don't think they had to do much. Half Life 2 is a DX9 style game that is nearly 10 years old, and Portal is a DX9 style game that is nearly 7 years old. NVIDIA should be able to keep detail settings high across the board while achieving very playable framerates on Shield tablet @ 1080p render resolution (and the video they posted is pretty good evidence of that).

 

[Roland00Address]

Well you were comparing apples to oranges (16GB Nexus 7 with WiFi to a 32GB Shield tablet with LTE+WiFi). The difference in list price between 16GB Nexus 7 WiFi and 16GB Shield tablet WiFi is $70, the difference in list price between 32GB Nexus 7 WiFi and 32GB Shield tablet LTE+WiFi is $130, and the difference in list price between 32GB Nexus 7 LTE+WiFi and 32GB Shield tablet LTE+WiFi is $50. And for the extra money, one gets a microSD card slot, stylus, larger screen, improved heat dissipation, and much higher CPU/GPU performance. I'm not saying it is worth it for everyone (clearly it is not), but other than not having more WiFi only options, you get what you pay for more-or-less.

I do completely agree that it would have been nice to see more WiFi-only options. Hopefully NVIDIA considers releasing at least one or two more SKU's at some point.

I agree I am not being fair to Nvidia for I am comparing apples and oranges.

Yet I am also being extremely fair. I am just viewing the tablets as a consumer would, not as a tech geek that understands how hard it is to make a computer device and all the tech stuff inside of it. What do I need to get an X better experience, where X is gaming. To do that I need a better gpu but I also need a better storage space. Things such as lte are not positives or negatives, yet they increase the price.

If nvidia does not want me to compare devices this way it could have released more skus at different price points.

As many different writers at anandtech (but to my understanding anand himself has not said) have said in the past, "there are no bad products, only bad prices." I am not saying the shield tablet is bad in any way, just that it would be much more competitive and more likely to get a purchase from me if the models were $50 dollars cheaper, or if they drop the LTE on the 32gb sku and sell the 32gb for $349. I understand I am not the only fish in the sea, and there are people that will gladly pay the shield price, but I wonder if Nvidia will make more money if they had a cheaper price point. It is all about profit maximization and creating an ecosystem. Sometimes lower prices lead to more volume sold that make up for the lower price. Sometimes a higher price leads to more profits. It is a trade off and it is hard to get the formula just right.

 

[Dribble]

Agree about the 32gb without LTE. 16gb is just too small to be useful, my original nexus 7 has 16gb and it's permanently full. However I don't want LTE, so why should I have to spend so much extra to get what I would consider the minimal amount of storage for a device like this?

 

[vbuggy]

Agree about the 32gb without LTE. 16gb is just too small to be useful, my original nexus 7 has 16gb and it's permanently full. However I don't want LTE, so why should I have to spend so much extra to get what I would consider the minimal amount of storage for a device like this?

...because the 16Gb is the one for cheapskates?

 

[Lyfer]

Is this device made by HTC? It looks like a giant HTC One.

 

[sontin]

Agree about the 32gb without LTE. 16gb is just too small to be useful, my original nexus 7 has 16gb and it's permanently full. However I don't want LTE, so why should I have to spend so much extra to get what I would consider the minimal amount of storage for a device like this?

You could ask the same about every other features. Why do i need to pay for 192Cores instead of 96? Or for 4 ARM15 Cores instead of 2?

You get LTE for free. Every other vendor wants $100 more for 32gb over 16gb...

 

[Dribble]

You could ask the same about every other features. Why do i need to pay for 192Cores instead of 96? Or for 4 ARM15 Cores instead of 2?

You get LTE for free. Every other vendor wants $100 more for 32gb over 16gb...

That's cause they are ripping you off, that extra 16gb probably cost about $5. Bottom line is 16gb is just not enough for a 2014 high end device like this where the user is going to download lots of games (that's the whole point of it).

 

[dawheat]

You could ask the same about every other features. Why do i need to pay for 192Cores instead of 96? Or for 4 ARM15 Cores instead of 2?

You get LTE for free. Every other vendor wants $100 more for 32gb over 16gb...

Besides Apple, who else is trying to charge $100 for 16GB -> 32GB today?

In all fairness, it's surprisingly hard to find that many Android vendors who have multiple storage versions available in the US - they announce them but don't actually sell them in the US. Samsung is especially bad at that - though the one case I could find (Note 10.1 2014) does have a $50 increment between 16 and 32.

 

[rushmore]

The LTE model should have IMO been the 16GB, if the focus is still mainly for gamers. With the 16GB model, free storage will be about 11GB and then the Android L update will take about 3.5GB of that due to ART, since ART will use 25% more storage than Dalvik, plus ART needs 1GB more floor than Dalvik to operate and be stable. Added: Can the preinstalled games be deleted? If not, a lot LESS space than that.

This IMO is a POOR choice for storage size, but sure they are wanting a price point that allows higher attach rates for the controller as well. They should have also offered a 32GB wifi version for $350. Seems a slight against the very gamers they try to covet, since people wanting the 32GB model will have to buy the bloat ridden carrier model for $50 more than a wifi only model.

What will happen is you will probably be forced to buy the 32GB through phone carriers which means a LOT of carrier bloat and pricing terms set by the carriers. Seems a very bad idea. A gamer centric device with Android 3D games now averaging 1.5GB in size on a device with less than 11GB free storage is pure contradiction.

I have the Shield 1, but "only" use for emulators and Android games. A select few games since out of storage space and have the micro sd loaded with roms.

 

[Ravynmagi]

It's funny all this complaining I've done about the price of the 32GB option (with LTE). I finally decided even at $400 that's an acceptable price. So I go to look at the price of the 32GB Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and Tab S 8.4 and just realized there isn't even a 32GB option available for them (not that I found on Amazon at least). *slaps forehead*

So as I was saying in my head I'm comparing the pros and cons of the Shield Tablet with what I consider it's main 8-ish inch competitors. The Tab Pro 8.4, Tab S 8.4, and iPad Mini 2.

Obviously one benefit I just now see is with Shield Tablet at least I do have the option of getting a 32GB model, that can't be done at the moment with either Galaxy tablet. The iPad Mini 2 has 32GB, but that'll cost $500 and with LTE that is $630. The iPad Mini 2 doesn't have micro SD like the Shield Tablet and Galaxy Tabs, but if money is no object you can get a 128GB iPad Mini 2 for $700.

Performance. Going off of the Mi Pad reviews, which has a K1 inside. The GPU performance just blows everything away. And even on the CPU side the K1, which is still using the ARM 15 cores, still seems to have a leg up on the competition in most of the benchmarks. So the Shield seems to have the best performing SoC of the bunch.

Display. It's only a 1920x1200 display. That still has plenty of DPI that I think everything should still look sharp. And I admit I haven't seen the 2560x1600 displays on the Tab Pro or S. But both seem to be highly praised for their beauty and the AMOLED on the Tab S is probably nothing short of amazing see. The iPad Mini also has a higher DPI display, but not by as much. My guess is the Shield might be at the bottom of the competition here. However the resolution was likely for a reason, it's intended for gaming and you'll get more FPS out of this resolution. Games will run smoother. (edit, just adding in I realize there is more to displays the resolution, but I believe all these tablets should have nicely calibrated colors, good contrast, and so forth. However the Tegra Note 7 did have some display quality complaints, so but I'm thinking the more expensive Shield Tablet will have addressed that).

Extras. Samsung puts all kinds of extra features into their tablets, many of them are software related like multi windows, and such. Almost all the Touchwiz features are things I would prefer not to have. The Galaxy Tabs also have an IR blaster, but that's another feature I don't use. The iPad Mini 2 really has no extra hardware features, though it's app eco system could be considered a special feature in it's favor. The Shield comes with a stylus, which is something I would use, I also like the inclusion of an HDMI port on the tablet. And for me the fact that Nvidia is using a stock Android OS and says they'll update it quickly to Android L is a impressive feature in itself.


I was tempted to by the Galaxy Tab S 8.4. I'd love to have an AMOLED display on my tablet, that is a big selling feature for that tablet to me. Unfortunately I held back because of the Exynos 5 processor is not impressive with graphics.

Now if I was buying an 8 inch tablet, it would very likely be the Shield Tablet. Though one reservation I have is it's size and weight. It's about 25% heavier than a Tab S 8.4, also taller, wider, and thicker while having a smaller 8.0 inch display.

Also another thing that may hold me back is the Nexus 8/9. I suspect this is a tablet I'd probably rather have, but it could still be months away.

 

[ams23]

I would also love to have a 64-bit Denver TK1-powered Nexus 8.9" tablet (or whatever it is), but it probably won't be ready for several months, and pricing is unknown but expected to be much higher than $299.

The "move to SD card" feature is working pretty well right now on the 16GB Shield portable (with KitKat), so at least that will help a little bit. And in my experience, most Android games will play perfectly fine on Shield portable with some of the game assets moved to SD card.

What I don't understand is how people can get by with 16GB storage and no microSD card (ie. base models for Nexus 7, iPad Mini Retina, iPad Air, etc).

Apple charges $229 (!) to go from 16GB WiFi to 32GB LTE+WiFi on the iPad Mini Retina, and they still charge $100 to go from 16GB WiFi to 32GB WiFi, all with no microSD card slot and at a base price that is already $100 higher than Shield tablet to begin with!

 

[rushmore]

I think $400 is very fine for a tablet like this and both models are probably $50 less due to the desire of high attach rates of the higher profit margin controllers. They will sell more devices at this price point and probably a lot more of the controllers as a result.

The issues I have with the 32GB from a carrier are:

1. A lot more bloat
2. Delays in updates
3. Resources used due to the bloat
4. Probably two months later than the 16GB?

They should have offered a 32GB wifi model for $350. It would sell very well.

Added: Very very well, since most gamers would prefer the extra storage, especially when L is released. SD cards can be problematic with other non game apps and L is an unknown.