THE ULTIMATE IS COMING - NVIDIA

Pottsey · 22 Jul 2014 at 21:48

Ayahuasca said:
So basically Pottsey is just talking out of his backside?

I watched my brother play Xcom without any problem what so ever from his PC to his tablet via Splashtop. http://www.splashtop.com/personal.

Limelight Game Streaming is meant to be good but never seen that one in action so I cannot comment on it.

Gibbo · 22 Jul 2014 at 21:49

Pottsey said:
I don’t have an Ipad but as far as I am aware they can stream wirelessly to big screen TV via Airplay. Apps like Splash top put the PC desktop onto the Ipad. Is there any reason the two cannot be combined? Add in a wireless controller and its effectively a shield.

Android tablets do similar things. I use my Kindle to stream to my projector. Perhaps I should try splashtop tomorrow on it and check you can still stream with remote desktop.

I only mention splashtop as that’s the one I have seen my brother use to play his PC games while out and about on his tablet. No idea if it’s the best one.

EDIT: Splash top does lets you stream to a tablet from a PC and put the picture on the big screen TV at the same time.

Sounds rather complicated, or I could just buy a Shield Tablet and controller, having everything I need to play my PC games easily streamed from my PC in my main room where PC is not present or even at friends houses. NVIDIA is providing a complete solution, software, controller and most of all support. I don't see such a complete package from anyone else, do you?

Martini1991 · 22 Jul 2014 at 21:53

Splashtop isn't anywhere near as good! Let alone not using your own LAN.

I've been looking into Streaming on my Xperia Z1 for a while, and no Android solution (Bar limelight, which only exists because of Shield, and needs an Nvidia GPU) comes anywhere near to what Shield does.

Pottsey · 22 Jul 2014 at 21:54

Gibbo said:
Sounds rather complicated, or I could just buy a Shield Tablet and controller, having everything I need to play my PC games easily streamed from my PC in my main room where PC is not present or even at friends houses. NVIDIA is providing a complete solution, software, controller and most of all support. I don't see such a complete package from anyone else, do you?

It’s no more complicated then shield. Load the app and connect the TV. The only thing extra NVidia are doing is providing a wireless controller. But that’s not hard to get, add or use with any tablet. Support for that is built into Ipads now. Most android tablets are not that hard to use with a wireless pad.

It just all seems to be NVidia hype to me. 10's of millions of people have been streaming from the PC to tablets for years now.

EDIT @ Martini1991: People keep saying bar limelight. Does that mean limelight is good enough to use on any other tablet?

EDIT2: If in your own house why not just stream directly wirelessly from the PC to the TV for 80% less money? Plug the wireless control in the PC. All the same functions for far less money and less lag.

Martini1991 · 22 Jul 2014 at 22:00

Pottsey said:
EDIT @ Martini1991: People keep saying bar limelight. Does that mean limelight is good enough to use on any other tablet?

Limelight only exists on Android (As far as I'm aware) and still requires an Nvidia GPU.

I'm not 100% sure how good it is, but it's basically Nvidia's gamestream reworked, obviously how good it is depends on the device you're using, something Nvidia based (Say the Tegra 4 Advent tab that was going for 100 quid) would probably be best obviously.

In theory, you should be able to take the Advent Tab and in the same exact set up as someone with a shield (Same GPU, same Router etc) get the same experience.

The reality could be different (Which if it is, only bolsters how good Nvidia's gamestream is)

Gibbo · 22 Jul 2014 at 22:11

andybird123 · 22 Jul 2014 at 22:25

Pottsey said:
It’s no more complicated then shield. Load the app and connect the TV. The only thing extra NVidia are doing is providing a wireless controller. But that’s not hard to get, add or use with any tablet. Support for that is built into Ipads now. Most android tablets are not that hard to use with a wireless pad.

It just all seems to be NVidia hype to me. 10's of millions of people have been streaming from the PC to tablets for years now.

EDIT @ Martini1991: People keep saying bar limelight. Does that mean limelight is good enough to use on any other tablet?

EDIT2: If in your own house why not just stream directly wirelessly from the PC to the TV for 80% less money? Plug the wireless control in the PC. All the same functions for far less money and less lag.

I suggest you go try all these things you are suggesting and then come back when you realise why most of them don't actually work reliably enough to game on

Martini1991 · 22 Jul 2014 at 22:55

Only thing I found somewhat reliable was Splashtop HD (That I couldn't actually buy because my device doesn't support it, but sideloading the APK worked, hooray for nothing)
But games weren't full screen, so it's not all that great, the IQ was terrible really (I run some Asus Router and under steam streaming can do 1080p streaming flawlessly) and just not a great experience, that is a gimmick.

PhysicsMan94 · 22 Jul 2014 at 23:42

Neat looking device, if I wasn't going to buy a Surface Pro 3 and maybe a ROG Swift soon then I'd consider getting one of these

Pottsey · 23 Jul 2014 at 07:50

andybird123 said:
I suggest you go try all these things you are suggesting and then come back when you realise why most of them don't actually work reliably enough to game on

It seems perfectly reliable to me. No lag to the projector. Xcom works fine remote from desktop to tablet. I don’t own a wireless controller but never heard of anyone have problems with them.

Like I said before Splashtop tried and worked. Limelight I have been told is better but never tried.

oweneades · 23 Jul 2014 at 07:52

ubersonic said:
Well of course there's a market for it, it pwns the PS Vita handheld and the PS3 console performance wise and can do the job of both.

Ah so it can play Vita games, PS3 games and act as a streaming device for the PS4.... no?! Then it can't do the job of both.

Seems like a decent enough tablet in isolation but let's not get carried away.

Gibbo · 23 Jul 2014 at 09:25

Pottsey said:
It seems perfectly reliable to me. No lag to the projector. Xcom works fine remote from desktop to tablet. I don’t own a wireless controller but never heard of anyone have problems with them.

Like I said before Splashtop tried and worked. Limelight I have been told is better but never tried.

Clearly other people are having issues.
NVIDIA have a solution that is easy to access, so right now there is no real complete comparable solution.

Gregster · 23 Jul 2014 at 09:44

I tried Limelight and it didn't work for me on my phone or tablet. Streaming was broken up and this is doing it over wifi in my house. Maybe the devices are not up to the task, I don't know but LimeLight still requires an nVidia GPU and GFE (Geforce Experience) to even get started.

Splashtop works best (full screen mode) if you have an nVidia GPU in your system, as currently they are the only ones supporting this. (No idea if true, as I have been looking into game streaming, I have found these things out). If you don't have an nVidia GPU, you can play in windowed mode though.

https://support-splashtoppersonal.splashtop.com/entries/23247897-Play-game-in-full-screen-mode

To me, it is a lot of flaffing about, when in reality, this relatively cheap tablet does the job. I would want it for work and to do some lite gaming in my downtime but not sure how that would cope. Maybe someone has tried it and had success but can't seem to find anything out.

Martini1991 · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:00

Yeah, I saw that when I was looking at splashtop.
There's another program ; Kainy, I'm pretty sure that works Full Screen.

Splashtop and fullscreen mode for AMD GPU's is fubar (Probably where my problems come in, but given I use Steam In Home Streaming as my reference, which is flawless I expect the same regardless of my GPU), not that it has any reason to be.

Kainy for me can work very well at times, but othertime it's just dropping all over the place, and again the IQ isn't great.

Splashtop IQ isn't great, which is where most of my issues come in, it's a sub-par experience. I could sit there playing a game windowed with Splashtop (But the controller would be in the PC, not my device, which isn't a problem with my wireless PC controller, but it's no Steam Streaming), but doing so is just forcing myself to have a sub par experience.

EDIT : Gregster, which router do you have? Limelight *should* in theory be right up there (Of course this depends on your client tablet too)

Gibbo · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:03

Good to have your guys feedback, looks to me like Shield is a lot more end user friendly and well simply works.

I played Batman on a 4K tv streamed from gaming PC via the tablet, looks superb, played with issue and very well and was a simple as left click, click click.

Apache14 · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:05

Id imagine that these nvidia only "screen streaming" services probably use some some encoding / decoding tailored to the mobile nvidia GPU on tegra3/4 and k1 to reduce lag. Also for these things to work well 5Ghz WiFi is needed to reduce latency across that link.

I hope the nvidia have moved forward from the days of tegra2 and 3. I maintained the Asus TF101 and TF201 for Cyanogenmod and can say with confidence that they where not good chips at all unfortunately :/

oweneades · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:14

Apache14 said:
Id imagine that these nvidia only "screen streaming" services probably use some some encoding / decoding tailored to the mobile nvidia GPU on tegra3/4 and k1 to reduce lag. Also for these things to work well 5Ghz WiFi is needed to reduce latency across that link.

I hope the nvidia have moved forward from the days of tegra2 and 3. I maintained the Asus TF101 and TF201 for Cyanogenmod and can say with confidence that they where not good chips at all unfortunately :/

The streaming uses hardware encoding on the Nvidia GPU to reduce latency / lag as much as possible. The Tegra 4 / K1 must also have some form of hardware encoding / decoding to do the same at the other end. This only works on Nvidia GPU's from the Kepler range and up.

This is funcionally similar to Sony's remote play between the Vita & PS4.

Gregster · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:15

nVidia are the guys who have put the work into this streaming and hence why these 3rd party services seem to work best with nVidia hardware.

@ Mart - http://www.trustedreviews.com/sky-hub-2013_Peripheral_review

It is very basic but does the job.

Martini1991 · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:20

Gregster said:
nVidia are the guys who have put the work into this streaming and hence why these 3rd party services seem to work best with nVidia hardware.

@ Mart - http://www.trustedreviews.com/sky-hub-2013_Peripheral_review

It is very basic but does the job.

In Steam Streaming, Nvidia's GPU encoding is pretty broke (AMD's isn't anywhere yet)

, thankfully I think it can use the Intel IGP in my Haswell so that's all sorted.

And that router could be a root of some of your problems, I used to have a basic Belkin N+ router, then I bought ; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-049-AS&groupid=46&catid=1596 and I was able to do streaming at full 1080p across the house flawlessly, the Belkin N+ would crap out constantly.

Apache14 · 23 Jul 2014 at 10:22

oweneades said:
The streaming uses hardware encoding on the Nvidia GPU to reduce latency / lag as much as possible. The Tegra 4 / K1 must also have some form of hardware encoding / decoding to do the same at the other end. This only works on Nvidia GPU's from the Kepler range and up.

This is funcionally similar to Sony's remote play between the Vita & PS4.

Remember, when you are streaming from the PC the tablet is (in effect) doing nothing more than displaying (decoding) video and relaying key-presses. The GPU on T4 and TK1 will have the ability to decode that (the codec could be nvidia propitiatory made to reduce lag or could also just be h264 in a fancy wrapper). The heavy lifting will be on the PC end, and i'm guessing that the use of these streaming has a performance hit on the PC.

EDIT :

Actually you could dig into the type of codec use from a ROM dump of the device. as all codecs available to decode/encode are listed in a configuration file for OMX (if you cared enough)