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Nvidia just announced a handheld - releasing Q2 2013
- Thread starter Nilaul
- Start date
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I do not want a Handheld gaming system that requires a godamn heat sink
That is just looking at the latency directly to the handheld, not back to the TV, correct?
They all have heatsinks. Unless you mean something other than what you actually said.
Do you mean time it takes to render each frame, the screen's maximum refresh rate, or FPS for each game?
if you watch the stage demo back frame-by-frame, it's very hard to actually gauge the latency even on button presses due to the unresponsive, pre-canned animations in AC3.
this doesn't rule out the possibility of deliberately chose a game which would fudge out input lag.
this doesn't rule out the possibility of deliberately chose a game which would fudge out input lag.
SirButterstick
Banned
Ah interesting. Thank you.
I'll be happy for everyone who's gonna have fun with it, but I feel it's going to sell less than what Nvidia will expect.
I mean, they probably want to sell as much as possible. They want to be a competitor in that IOS handheld gaming niche market. Problem is, the price alone will be it's death (in addition to the points I mentioned in my previous post).
Hardware h.264 decoding is very cheap powerwise.
No, I include the latency twice, once to get the control inputs there and then (combined with the transmission time) to get the encoded frame back.
Yeah, I guess the battery will last much longer when streaming PC games than when playing Android games.
Ahh pardon me, here was me thinking most people have their PC's in their living room.
That would just be from device -> computer -> device, correct? I'm probably missing the key ingredient on how this streams to the TV, but would it not have to go device -> computer -> device -> TV set/receiver?
I NEED SCISSORS
Banned
I like the sound of it, hate the look of it. Will probably bomb like Ouya and the Steam console.
Sure, and then the TV lag on top of that. I didn't include that use case since it doesn't interest me
I'm curious: is it possible to play Nintendo 64 games like Majora's Mask on Android yet? If so, making this a portable NES, SNES, N64, GB, GBC, GBA, Master System, Genesis, and PlayStation would be a very good selling point for the sake of an emulation device. That enough would sell me on this. Streaming PC games is just an added bonus to this.
Sure it's an unethical reason to buy this, but come on, who wouldn't use this as the perfect portable emulation machine?
Sure it's an unethical reason to buy this, but come on, who wouldn't use this as the perfect portable emulation machine?
Are you aware that many console games have 100+ ms input latencies? (And TVs are often around 50, with outliers up to 100+)Fair enough
With render times (in ms) on top of all of this, I can't imagine any game that uses input polling would feel okay using this. Maybe NVIDIA will figure out some crazy voodoo.
Nope. I play on 120hz monitors with 99% frame time in the 6ms range.
Oh, those are out already?
Yes, everything up to psx-n64.
There are also DS-PSP emulators on the way, but at a very early stage.
I don't see it unethical at all, you can buy all that emulators on the google play store.
ComputerMKII
Banned
It's Nvidia, not nVidia.
Yes, this will "fail" in the sense that it won't be a mass market product. However, the nature of it being an open platform (and a streaming device for another open platform) assures that this can't fail in the same way that a closed system can. This will be able to play all mobile games released for Android until is out of specs, plus all PC the games. Vita, 3DS and Wii U can't say the same; if those system fail to attain critical mass then their software library suffers a great deal. This device doesn't have that little problem even if it sells just a few thousands units. For me this looks like a win-win.
How does this compares to Wii U?
How does this compares to Wii U?
The confusion probably stems from their old logo. Which is nVIDIA I guess.
At least we know how to pronounce it properly thanks to their stupid title screen video clips, unlike ASUS, which probably the vast majority of people mispronounce.
Yeah, you can't think of it like a console since it doesn't have to support its own separate software ecosystem.
I guess Wii U games are similar to other console games in terms of internal input latency. The controller streaming is supposed to be very responsive, but I haven't seen any exact measurements so far.
AY SOOS!The confusion probably stems from their old logo. Which is nVIDIA I guess.
At least we know how to pronounce it properly thanks to their stupid title screen video clips, unlike ASUS, which probably the vast majority of people mispronounce.
Also, it's actually NVIDIA.
http://www.nvidia.com/content/subscribe/nvidia/nvidia_newsletter.asp
Here's what I think:
- Android. Nvidia probably know what they're doing here. The biggest feature here is Android. Even when its not a serious AAA gaming platform, its already getting some attention from the big name devs out there like Rockstar. Its an open field. Now, with not 1 but two platforms with fully featured controllers - Ouya and Shield, Android has the potential to become a massive gaming platform.
I'm thinking out loud here, but it just might become THE gaming platform. Gaming needs to come on a standardized unified open OS platform, with manufacturers competing on hardware and software all compatible on that OS. Like PC gaming, or the home video market. Android might be the answer.
But that is too far forward. For now, I think Android will begin getting ports from the big-name publishers.
-Fully featured controller. Love this fact.
-The PC Steam Streaming. If its all done locally, on LAN/Ethernet, then that surely means lag will be non-existent of the kind we saw with Onlive and streaming based on WAN. If this is true, then the streaming experience can be another seller for this thing.
That said, yeah it looks big but I don't know how else anyone out there is going to pack state of the art mobile processor, fully featured controller and a screen in a smaller packaging.
What I'm looking forward to now is how the developers react to Android. This ultimately will decide the fate of both Ouya and Shield.
- Android. Nvidia probably know what they're doing here. The biggest feature here is Android. Even when its not a serious AAA gaming platform, its already getting some attention from the big name devs out there like Rockstar. Its an open field. Now, with not 1 but two platforms with fully featured controllers - Ouya and Shield, Android has the potential to become a massive gaming platform.
I'm thinking out loud here, but it just might become THE gaming platform. Gaming needs to come on a standardized unified open OS platform, with manufacturers competing on hardware and software all compatible on that OS. Like PC gaming, or the home video market. Android might be the answer.
But that is too far forward. For now, I think Android will begin getting ports from the big-name publishers.
-Fully featured controller. Love this fact.
-The PC Steam Streaming. If its all done locally, on LAN/Ethernet, then that surely means lag will be non-existent of the kind we saw with Onlive and streaming based on WAN. If this is true, then the streaming experience can be another seller for this thing.
That said, yeah it looks big but I don't know how else anyone out there is going to pack state of the art mobile processor, fully featured controller and a screen in a smaller packaging.
What I'm looking forward to now is how the developers react to Android. This ultimately will decide the fate of both Ouya and Shield.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
Could you explain how you reached this estimate for T? This is the one I'm having trouble with. How big exactly is a compressed frame?
H.264 compression, as far as I understand, isn't designed for compressing one frame at a time, instead breaking the video stream into blocks that usually extend across multiple frames, both in the past and in the future, so unless there is considerable change/motion between frames (quick cuts or camera moves), most of the information between frames is the same. Wikipedia claims you can get Mpeg2 quality TV video at 1.5 Mbps with H.264, but surely that doesn't mean an individual frame is 8kB in size(!) for this reason exactly.
Even the numbers you provide for compressing H.264 in real time (8ms for 1080p video) rely on having a pre-recorded video source where you can use the common information between past and future frames to drastically cut back on video bitrate.
Following this line of thinking, it seems reasonable to assume that a different form of compression altogether is used, and due to the additional constraints I assume the transmitted signal is going to be quite higher in bit-rate than a compressed video.
This then introduces more problems due to transmission time and network latency. Once again according to Wikipedia a fast wireless network (802.11n) has the capability to stream 300Mbps of data. When you consider that others are also likely streaming data across the network, I'd say it would be reasonable to limit the streaming from the PC to the Shield to 100Mbps at most. This is probably still way more than you would need to stream a reasonably compressed video-game, but not so much that you could deliver a frame in 5ms, which is the T you are using.
edit: fixed some spelling and grammar, and one error in calculation.
edit2:
This is some good information, and may go along with what I was beginning to imagine would be the way to make the compression more effective. It would also explain the need for a dedicated video encoder on board the GPU. An uncle of mine was working in the area of video compression at the time OnLive was first announced, and did some guess-timations that showed there had to be something special about the compression they used. Later I think he was told that information was in fact being shared between the GPU and encoder during the rendering of each frame, allowing further optimization of the signal bit-rate. I suspect something similar may be going on here.
Digital Foundry has a nice analysis of things (that are known). Some highlights are:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-nvidia-project-shield-spec-analysis
This feature is Kepler-only, owing to the onboard h.264 video encoder incorporated into the silicon. Instead of rendering out completed frames to the display, Kepler encodes them at the driver level with no hit to CPU performance and the PC beams out the video feed to Shield.
We have high hopes for Shield's streaming performance considering the overall hardware and software set-up. First up, there's the fact that the device has a 1280x720 screen. PC-side, there's no apparent on-screen rendering meaning that the software can pour all of its resources into a native 720p framebuffer, so even the entry-level GTX 650 should be able to produce decent visuals and frame-rate on virtually every game. Secondly, the resolution limit means that vast amounts of bandwidth won't be required to maintain excellent image quality - 15-20mbps would be lavish by OnLive standards and unattainable on the majority of broadband internet connections, but should be easy to work with on any modern router.
In the home, we should see massive improvements to latency over the OnLive experience too, not just because of the more localised environment, but also owing to the way that the h.264 encoder will have access to the completed framebuffer without having to scan-out from the video output. Provided the panel chosen by Nvidia for the Shield is fast enough, there's every reason to believe that the whole process could be completed with latencies close to that of the average HDTV.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-nvidia-project-shield-spec-analysis
This feature is Kepler-only, owing to the onboard h.264 video encoder incorporated into the silicon. Instead of rendering out completed frames to the display, Kepler encodes them at the driver level with no hit to CPU performance and the PC beams out the video feed to Shield.
We have high hopes for Shield's streaming performance considering the overall hardware and software set-up. First up, there's the fact that the device has a 1280x720 screen. PC-side, there's no apparent on-screen rendering meaning that the software can pour all of its resources into a native 720p framebuffer, so even the entry-level GTX 650 should be able to produce decent visuals and frame-rate on virtually every game. Secondly, the resolution limit means that vast amounts of bandwidth won't be required to maintain excellent image quality - 15-20mbps would be lavish by OnLive standards and unattainable on the majority of broadband internet connections, but should be easy to work with on any modern router.
In the home, we should see massive improvements to latency over the OnLive experience too, not just because of the more localised environment, but also owing to the way that the h.264 encoder will have access to the completed framebuffer without having to scan-out from the video output. Provided the panel chosen by Nvidia for the Shield is fast enough, there's every reason to believe that the whole process could be completed with latencies close to that of the average HDTV.
csquared587
Member
As a GTX 670 owner that absolutely loves wii u's off screen play, I am interested if the price is right.
RockmanWhore
Member
All these android consoles look pretty cool. But I'd rather get a Xperia Play 2, or a Google Nexus with physical buttons instead. Nintendo and Sony already make awesome handhelds, and buying another handheld other than my phone, my 3DS and my Vita is a bit overkill.
la flama blanca
Banned
Steam console, you funny man.
Yeah, but those devices don't have the render power of a modern Kepler card at their disposal.
I'm speculating starting from x264 "zerolatency" mode, which is designed for applications like this. Back at the start of 2010, it was doing 800x600 in 10ms.
As for individual frame size, it will of course be larger than with normal h264 compression. Still, even if we assume an increase in frame size by a factor of 10(!) due to this, that will only be ~ 200 kB per frame. To transmit that in 5 ms we would need 40 Mbit. This is how I got the number.
help me if mistaken i read that you can only play steam games, via big picture mode through the tv only, not the screen on the pad! and i think you need a pc to stream the steam client to the nvidia handset wirelessly via wifi
seems a bit poinless i can do that now
Laptop+XBOX Contoller+ STEAM connect to TV via HDMI LEAD
why would i want
NVDIA SHIELD+HDMI LEAD TO TV connected via wifi stream from LAPTOP+STEAM?
seems a bit poinless i can do that now
Laptop+XBOX Contoller+ STEAM connect to TV via HDMI LEAD
why would i want
NVDIA SHIELD+HDMI LEAD TO TV connected via wifi stream from LAPTOP+STEAM?
Seems like it could be.
Last night when I saw this I thought of it primarily as an android game player / physical controller with secondary PC streaming capabilities that were probably laggy.
Now that more people are looking into the PC streaming aspect. It seems like Nvidia is in the unique position, as long as you have the right Nvidia GPU in your PC to offer PC streaming that can rival the low latency of the Wii U gamepad.
Now I'm thinking it could be an awesome PC streamer with a secondary feature of also being an android game player/controller.
You are mistaken. It streams video (compressed directly on the PC GPU) to the device via WiFi.
Not that I would ever trust Engadget to correctly assess lag, but it probably can't be too bad.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
Does anyone know how to download the engadget video? it should be possible to get some latency measurement from that, since you see both the monitor and the handheld.
You are right, I am wrong, and that's embarrassing. So better hope that the encoding does not cause a 10x blowup in frame size, then we're perfectly fine
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
Yeah, after thinking about it for the morning, I could do the same thing this device does with a wireless kb/m or a 360 controller. Only difference would be if I moved my PC out of my living room and into my bedroom but kept the TV in the living room.
ed
Also getting the impression that my GTX570 won't do the streaming. So wireless kb/m and an Ouya may be what I go back to stewing on.
The fact it's very much still a prototype is a bit reassuring regarding its, ahum, style of casing.
Ok, I downloaded it. Frame-stepping through it, I see exactly 1 frame of (30 FPS) latency between the monitor and Shield in that video. So that's <= 33ms.
Maybe that should be added to the OP, since it's a real demonstration of the hardware to a third party and not just some marketing number.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
Does anyone know how to download the engadget video? it should be possible to get some latency measurement from that, since you see both the monitor and the handheld.
You are right, I am wrong, and that's embarrassing. So better hope that the encoding does not cause a 10x blowup in frame size, then we're perfectly fine
honestly, these calculations are making me appreciate what Nintendo have accomplished even more, and also further convince me that the framerate and latency Wii U offers aren't practical with today's technology unless it's on a dedicated connection.
(assuming ~100kB per frame, 60 fps with 1 frame delay, 10ms transmission time - with the remaining 6ms going towards encoding and decoding, you'd need a dedicated 80mbps!)