Can the godlike NVIDIA lead the way for TV gaming?

After PC, the next gaming battlefield for domestic players may be the big screen TV.

In 2014, game consoles that had been dormant for more than a decade were fully lifted. However, whether it is the Microsoft XBOX, which has gone through three generations, or the Sony PlayStation, which has been replaced four times, it is still a question whether it can continue to be the mainstream of TV games in the future.

Who will be the next trend-setter in TV gaming? As the performance of Tegra chips becomes more and more impressive, the answer may be NVIDIA, a "god-like existence" in the graphics processing and computing industry.

Extraordinary products

The Tegra family of cores has revolutionized mobile computing, powering a new generation of tablet computers, smartphones, portable media players, and in-vehicle driver safety/assistance/information systems.

Tegra chips, since the first generation of Tegra processors, have shown very strong performance advantages over other similar products. With the change of hardware versions, Tegra2, Tegra3, and Tegra4 have greatly improved the core processing effect in different aspects.

With Tegra K1, the hardware performance of the Tegra chip has taken a big leap forward. Using NVIDIA's Kepler architecture GPU and equipped with 192 CUDA cores, Tegra K1 has very powerful performance in graphics display. In addition to the 192 CUDA cores, it also has 5 computing cores, 4 large and 1 small, fully supporting DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.4, making its graphics computing performance comparable to that of game consoles. Supporting the Unreal 4 game engine based on DirectX 11.1, devices equipped with Tegra K1 can achieve PC-level game effects.

The later Tegra X1 has done a great job in hardware performance, integrating four Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores. The GPU part adopts the Maxwell architecture, with a total of 256 stream processors, which can achieve performance comparable to that of entry-level discrete graphics cards.

NVIDIA announced its self-developed Shield console with Tegra core at a press conference in March this year. The Shield console uses an eight-core Tegra X1 core, supplemented by 3GB RAM + 16GB ROM space, and 4K high-definition image quality, giving games a good space to play on the console. Compared with the bulky PS4 and XBOXONE of the same era, its compact and exquisite body is more in line with the aesthetics of modern people.

A concept ahead of its time

According to NVIDIA's press conference, the Shield console supports DirectX 12 while the XBOX 360 only supports DirectX 9. The 512G floating point computing peak is half of the XBOX 360's 240G floating point computing peak. At the same time, the main 3G memory is also 6 times that of the XBOX 360, but its power consumption is only 1/5 of that of the XBOX 360. Using the same core as the PC graphics card, the Shield console has unlimited possibilities for game porting and development, thus enabling the Shield console to compete with traditional game consoles.

Shield console not only supports exclusive Android games supported by Tegra zone, but also supports GRID streaming service. This streaming game mode allows single-player games to get rid of the traditional download and activation game mode through cloud and PC transmission, so that insufficient hardware performance is no longer an obstacle for players. It gives games room for development on more platforms. As a result, more 3A-level PC game masterpieces can be presented to players through cloud or PC transmission, allowing players to better experience the charm of 3A-level game masterpieces on TV platforms.

High level experience

So, what will it be like when a console with Tegra as the core runs a game? We will use an existing console with Tegra K1 as the core to experience it.

As a graphics card manufacturer, NVIDIA's products have always been able to bring players a high-level gaming experience. It has launched many NVIDIA-exclusive games on Tegra Zone, which are tailor-made for Tegra chips to reflect the performance of Tegra chips. "Trinity 2" is a Tegra-exclusive game. During the game, both the game quality and the light and shadow effects are perfectly interpreted because of its core. There will be no frame loss, allowing the game to be perfectly displayed on the TV screen. At the same time, the game has made good adaptation to peripherals, so that players will not experience any discomfort when playing games with a handle, giving players the best gaming experience.

As a well-known game on the PC, Portal also performs well on this console. The game is very smooth without any lag. The excellent floating-point computing capability of Tegra brings better detail processing to the picture. The excellent anti-aliasing ability makes the game picture more rounded and full, and the picture effect may even exceed the original performance of the PC. The same good handle adaptation makes the game have a different operation method from the PC, which can give players who are used to playing PC games a new experience.

GRID streaming games are transmitted through the cloud, and the games running on the cloud service are transmitted to the remote host under a stable network. At the press conference, NVIDIA also showed us that it cooperates with major game manufacturers to put many large PC games on its GRID cloud to meet the needs of players for large games. At the same time, GRID streaming games were also demonstrated with games such as "Crysis 3", "Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes", "GT Racing", and "The Witcher 3", so that these games that once stumped countless PC graphics cards can be displayed on the screen with 60fps 4K high-definition picture quality, giving players unlimited fantasy space.

After reading about NVIDIA, what is the right direction for TV gaming?

With the support of national policies, China's game industry is booming. A large number of games are constantly emerging, but these games have not brought a good start to the domestic TV game industry. Players are looking forward to the investment of high-quality game masterpieces, and now NVIDIA has met the needs of players with the Shield console. The Shield console is already well compatible with some larger games and games provided on the Tegra zone in terms of hardware. In addition, the emergence of GRID streaming also meets the players' demand for high-quality games. The exquisite and compact body also meets the players' pursuit of beautiful console appearance.

In fact, the hardware performance of domestic consoles is not worse than that of Shield consoles, but how to bring out their functions becomes a problem. At present, most domestic games tend to be casual games, but these games do not have very high requirements for hardware, which has brought considerable obstacles to the performance of domestic game consoles.

At the same time, there is no remote service like GRID Cloud. Even if there is, the technology has high requirements for the network, and the quality of the domestic network has become an obstacle. The construction of the game platform is not perfect. Due to the influence of early policies, the domestic game culture has not been well accumulated, which has led to many game manufacturers producing a lot of low-quality games for money, which has prevented the domestic game industry from developing well, and has created considerable resistance to the current domestic game development.

Finally, from a certain perspective, compared to domestic consoles, NVIDIA's own Shield device has excellent performance and experience, but relying on the Google Play platform to realize GIRD streaming game content, this landmark console is destined to be difficult to enter the Chinese market through formal channels like other Shield products.

However, the domestic game console market has closed a door for NVIDIA, but it may also open a window for other brands.

Who can make Android platform gaming devices at the same level as NVIDIA in the domestic environment, or who can create an experience similar to Shield on hardware, will determine who can really go further in the domestic TV game market which is just starting out?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.