Nvidia's Project Shield - 'Android & Tegra 4 inside'


I've never been much of a PC gamer myself. I built a cool gaming rig a few years back, and I've used it less than an hour total. Emulation is really where it's at on the PC for me, and it's just been easier to use my Pandora for this.

If I had a Nvidia card, I would use the streaming feature, as I love playing games on my handhelds, and this would allow me to play the latest and greatest in the palm of my hand(Tomb Raider, Bioshock, Etc).

Chris
 
Jumpman said:
I've never been much of a PC gamer myself. I built a cool gaming rig a few years back, and I've used it less than an hour total. Emulation is really where it's at on the PC for me, and it's just been easier to use my Pandora for this.

If I had a Nvidia card, I would use the streaming feature, as I love playing games on my handhelds, and this would allow me to play the latest and greatest in the palm of my hand(Tomb Raider, Bioshock, Etc).

Chris
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I wonder if you can stream games on emulators from the PC to the Shield!  That would be sweet!  Everything will run full speed (well depend on your wifi).  Yeah! I can stream Shenmue from nullDC!  
 
Shenmue said:
I can hear the name "Exophase" echoing.  Actually, after DraStic, he should create the PraSPic for the Shield and charge like $20 bucks for the emulator.  I'm sure people will line up as long as the China Wall  :D
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 Chinese great wall, get your facts straight!

That ppsspp guy is getting progress, he is hard-working and passionate. Applaudable in a way; he lacks Exo's talent.
 
Shenmue said:
I wonder if you can stream games on emulators from the PC to the Shield!  That would be sweet!  Everything will run full speed (well depend on your wifi).  Yeah! I can stream Shenmue from nullDC!
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 That very well may be possible by adding nullDC as a non-Steam game in Steam and launching it on the Shield in Steam big-picture mode, since that's the workaround for streaming unofficially-supported games to the Shield.  The other gotcha is actually controlling it, but I believe that should be possible by having nullDC configured with an Xinput-capable input plugin (since that's nVidia's hook for Shield's remote controlling). :)  Perhaps I'll go about giving this all a shot later and seeing if I can get it to work... :p
 
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xiongxioi said:
That ppsspp guy is getting progress, he is hard-working and passionate. Applaudable in a way; he lacks Exo's talent.
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Actually from what I've seen these guys are extremely talented and in some ways the emulator already looks surprisingly efficient.. they just need more time and more getting their feet wet if they want go in the deep end with NEON ASM optimization. Keep in mind their first release was only last November and it was very primitive then, the rate of progress is amazing (I on the other hand had DraStic kicking around since 2009 >_< Although I didn't work on it spring 2010 to summer 2012)
 
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Exophase said:
Actually from what I've seen these guys are extremely talented and in some ways the emulator already looks surprisingly efficient.. they just need more time and more getting their feet wet if they want go in the deep end with NEON ASM optimization. Keep in mind their first release was only last November and it was very primitive then, the rate of progress is amazing (I on the other hand had DraStic kicking around since 2009 >_< Although I didn't work on it spring 2010 to summer 2012)
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Yyou are right... I jumped to the conclusion a bit too fast.

I always wonder about their work load each day, because they have like 15 versions up every 24 hours.

So, you started Drastic at about 2009? Your sacred image just dead in me, I thought you were some sort of god among man that can create perfect ports with a flip of your magnificent fingers. :huh:

Anyway, I'm totally not trying to ask for anything like that, but do you think pandora can some~day, some~how have fluid N64 emulation made by some beautiful gentleman/lady? :wub: (look at you right in the eyes with an extremely expecting expression)
 
xiongxioi said:
Yyou are right... I jumped to the conclusion a bit too fast.

I always wonder about their work load each day, because they have like 15 versions up every 24 hours.
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Yeah, when I look at their commit logs I'm totally floored.. it's like this group of a few people are working full time jobs with overtime in crunch mode trying to meet a deadline. But without getting paid for it, outside of donations. It's not something you see every day.

xiongxioi said:
So, you started Drastic at about 2009? Your sacred image just dead in me, I thought you were some sort of god among man that can create perfect ports with a flip of your magnificent fingers. :huh:
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Ah yeah, there was a stint of work from summer 2009 to spring 2010 and again from summer 2012 to now. Most of 2011 was spent on the PS1 NEON GPU renderer (seriously, that long).. that did probably help prepare me better for optimizing some stuff in DraStic, but still, if I working on it and only it diligently from after my broken wrist healed in 2010 I could have probably had it out before the end of 2011. Kind of weird thinking about it (the 1GHz Pandoras wouldn't have been out yet but even overclocked CC units are good for some games). Better late than never though.

xiongxioi said:
Anyway, I'm totally not trying to ask for anything like that, but do you think pandora can some~day, some~how have fluid N64 emulation made by some beautiful gentleman/lady? :wub: (look at you right in the eyes with an extremely expecting expression)
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Man, now we're really getting off topic, I might get scolded for this.. ;) Mupen64plus already has a very well done recompiler, and a lot of work went into making the geometry stuff use NEON. I don't know exactly what's holding back performance, except for both the GPU drivers and GPU itself. I always considered doing a software renderer (like DraStic's) to be too much for N64 on something like mobile ARM hardware, since it has so many features. Bilinear and trilinear filtering w/MIP-mapping is pretty expensive, although I don't know N64's exact algorithm, just that it's not as good as what later GPUs used. There's also all the combiner and coverage stuff. I suppose having such a little texture memory would let you be pretty aggressive with texture caching and conversion. It could be an interesting experiment but probably not something I'd ever do. The whole HLE approach for N64 emulators on hardware like this isn't really appealing to me.
 
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It's people like the them (and guys like you) make the world great I think. I hope they can start selling a more flashed out version once it's sufficiently good. In fact, if ppsspp can have multi-thread support, it should be usable already. I would love to pay them for their dedication.

Exophase said:
Kind of weird thinking about it (the 1GHz Pandoras wouldn't have been out yet but even overclocked CC units are good for some games). Better late than never though.
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It turns out to be a great suprise. Like having a hooker jumped out of my grandpa's birthday cake. I've never expected something like that would come out on pandora. I thought pcsx is the best OP could do. You are such a genius.

Exophase said:
an, now we're really getting off topic, I might get scolded for this.. ;) Mupen64plus already has a very well done recompiler, and a lot of work went into making the geometry stuff use NEON.
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I regreted asking you this immediately after. I always have a sneaking suspicion that it takes a few year to write a good emulator, so if you were already working on it then it would be announced already. Sorry for that, it's due to my lack of consideration, but you take it like a champ, so thumbs up to you. (I was expecting to be shouted at) That's a good educative explaination, I fully understand now why it hasn't been touched since Ari64. (It would be so cool if I can play robotron 64 without stuttering though).

I guess I save my expectation for P2, no matter what it is, it should handle N64 like nobody's business.

May be shield can handle N64 emulation well, but I'm above that ugly bastard. I would not play that on a bus or train or anywhere, it looks ridiculous, utterly tasteless.
 
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If a near working Dreamcast emulator comes out on this I'll be all over it like a rash.

Until then my Pandora fulfils all my retro gaming needs.
 
Wow, so I received mine today and must say I'm really impressed. I didn't have too much time for testing so far, but I really like the two things I was hoping for the most: build quality and controls. I knew about the specs but until today I remained doubtful on build quality and controls due experience from other handhelds like Archos Gamepad, JXD 7300 but also the PS Vita and others. The Shield's controls are really great and even better than I expected. The build quality is top notch, I couldn't find anything worth complaining about.

Up to now I only tested the emus by Robert Broglia and just like expected they run great and most buttons can be mapped without any problems. I noticed issues trying to map the triggers and I think I forgot to try the out the analog sticks, but I will later when I test PSX and N64 emulation. Too bad I have so little time at the moment. I'm sure Nvidia or some other guys will soon deliver updates/apps to utilise all controls most applications. I remember Archos' mapping tool and also that one from tincore. At least something like this will most likely be available some time soon.

My first impression of the Shield: worth each and every cent I invested. Now if only I could make use of the streaming capability, but I don't have a capable desktop system around...
 
Ian J said:
If a near working Dreamcast emulator comes out on this I'll be all over it like a rash.

Until then my Pandora fulfils all my retro gaming needs.
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Would be interesting. Even if Pandora and Dreamcast seems to share some kind of familar GPU Architecture (Power VR), it seems at the end it's just about rough Processor Power to successfuly emulate an System, no matter if the Hardware is similar or not. :D I'm sure the Shield is beasty enough to emulate an Dreamcast without much sweat.
 
Of course it goes without saying if Pandora can emulate the Dreamcast I'll be all over that too.


Sent from my GT-I9300
 
Funny after playing with my Shield for a few hours then picking up my Pandora the Pandora feels light as a feather. I used to find the Pandora on the weighty side. :huh:  ..but not now :)

Renaissance Blood THD is a rather good rail shooter on the Shield.
 
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Got around to try a bunch of emus on the Shield today. Unless you play games that are made for it, all the emulators I tried are nowhere near as polish and smooth as they are on the Pandora. Pandora is still the KING in emulation IMHO. Oh and Shield's onscreen keyboard is no match for Pandora's real keyboard.
 
ANDROID said:
Shenmue said:
... Unless you play games that are made for it, all the emulators I tried are nowhere near as polish and smooth as they are on the Pandora....
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which emulators did you use? my experience has been the exact opposite of that
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Same here.

It seems like maybe some are thinking that if they like the Shield to much it is showing disloyalty to the Pandora. That's not the case. They are different devices that came out at different technological times. There's nothing wrong with the fact that the Shield can do emulators better than the Pandora.

Heck I'm sure that if a Pandora 2 comes out it will do better than the Shield. It's the way of advancement. 
 
Shenmue said:
Got around to try a bunch of emus on the Shield today. Unless you play games that are made for it, all the emulators I tried are nowhere near as polish and smooth as they are on the Pandora. Pandora is still the KING in emulation IMHO. Oh and Shield's onscreen keyboard is no match for Pandora's real keyboard.
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I'd be curious to know what you mean here as well? Which emu's and games specifically do you find to work better on Pandora over Shield?

I don't have a Shield yet, and I already knew that the on screen keyboard would NEVER replace a physical one, that was a given. But In regards to overall emulator performance, I can't see how this beast isn't running circles around Pandora. I'm sure some of the menu's that Notaz has made for Picodrive or Rearmed aren't as nice, but performance overall should be.

Chris
 
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