Category: Nvidia

Nvidia Unveils the Shield, a 4k Ready Android Gaming Console/Set-Top Box

Nvidia has announced an Android running 4K compatible set top box called Shield. Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang said the hope is for the Nvidia Shield to do for gaming what services like Netflix and Spotify did for music and video.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Jen-Hsun Huang” author_title=”Nvidia CEO and Co-Founder”]

The modern living room is a smorgasbord of technology. These smart devices running applications will increasingly disrupt the dedicated devices around it.

[/quote]

The console gets powered by the company’s Tegra X1 chip, which Hang says has more gaming power and has twice the efficiency compared to the Xbox 360. At launch, the Shield will get 50 games including Doom 3 and the latest Borderlands sequel.

Huang also announced a new version of its gaming streaming service called Grid, which will be made available as an added subscription.

The device has been priced at $199 slated to launch in May alongside Grid, which allows users to stream games in full HD at 60 fps from the cloud.

The NVIDIA Shield, the company’s new Android powered set-top box https://t.co/N65aUzewro

— Karissa Bell (@karissabe) March 4, 2015

March 4, 2015
Samsung Counter-Sues NVIDIA Over Patent Infringement

After being accused by NVIDIA of patent infringement, it’s Samsung now who has accused NVIDIA of infringing several of its semiconductor-related patents, counter-suing after the later one filed a lawsuit against the Korean manufacturer in September.

Samsung filed the lawsuit on Monday and is now seeking penalty for the infringement of his several technical patents. The Korean giant has also accused NVIDIA of misleading advertising when it says ‘Shield’ tablet sports the world’s fastest mobile processor, the Tegra. This was in response to NVIDIA’s accusation against Samsung and rival Qualcomm for infringing patents on its graphics-processing unit (GPU).

“We’ll review and respond to these new claims against us, and look forward to presenting our case on how NVIDIA GPU patents are being used without a license,” said NVIDIA in a statement. The company also cited a benchmarking study that supports its claim of Tegra being the fastest mobile processor in the market.

Earlier last year, Samsung was accused by Apple over infringement of several patented technologies, and now the Korean manufacturer is in a tiff with NVIDIA. This makes one wonder – ‘Why always Samsung’.

November 12, 2014
NVIDIA’s New Shield Tablet Takes Portable Gaming to the Next Level

Back in 2013, we saw the launch of first end-to-end consumer product: NVIDIA Shield. Now, Nvidia has unveiled the next generation of its Shield gaming hardware.

Later this month, the company will be offering a new Shield Wireless Controller and the Tegra K1-powered Shield Tablet, changing up the formula from the original Shield clamshell portable that was announced at the beginning of last year.

The new NVIDIA Sheild will replace original Shield’s 5-inch screen in favor of a bigger 8-inch, 1080p display. The Shield Tablet is equipped with an 8-inch 1,920 x 1,200 display, a 2.2Ghz quad-core A15 CPU, 2GB RAM and Nvidia’s impressive Tegra K1 mobile processor.

On the software side, it will be shipped largely with a stock of the Android 4.4.3, with just a few gaming tweaks. Twitch is integrated into the device system, allowing players to stream almost any app, game, or part of the Android interface.

The front-facing camera can be used for picture-in-picture, with audio coming from the integrated microphone or an external headset. When plugged into a TV, the tablet automatically switches into “Console Mode,” which brings up a controller-optimised 1080p interface for launching and purchasing apps and games.

It is equipped with a pair of front-facing stereo speakers sporting a solid and sleek design. At 9.2mm thick and weighing 390 grams, it’s also small and light enough to easily toss into a bag or purse when on the go.

Some apps that come out of the box include 1080p Netflix streaming, Hulu Plus, Shadowplay for capturing gameplay footage and Gamestream for streaming PC games directly to the tablet. 11 Tegra-K1 optimised games will be available at launch, including The Talos Principle, Half Life 2 and War Thunder, complete with cross-platform online play.

The new Shield Controller is similar to the game pad found with the current Shield portable, but features a smoother attractive design. Its layout features a pair of analog sticks at the bottom, a directional pad on the top left, four face buttons to the right and a set of dual-shoulder buttons that are perpendicularly-aligned, not unlike those on the Xbox 360 controller. In the center of the controller are buttons that are used to navigate around Android and Nvidia’s software, as well as launch voice-activated commands.

Nvidia’s new Shield Tablet will be available for an affordable $299 USD with 16GB of built-in storage and Wi-Fi connectivity. Doubling the storage and adding LTE will cost $399—the tablet is compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States. The Shield Controller will be sold for $59, and a cover for the tablet that can also be used as a kick stand is priced at $39.

July 23, 2014
Nvidia to Bring a New Hybrid Gaming Device for Android and PC

After bringing in the Nvidia Shield, a macho looking portable gaming device last year, Nvidia is now planning to bring the next version of the device. The processing giants makes some of the most sought after products for gaming enthusiasts. This year at CES Nvidia spellbound everyone by introducing the 192 core Tegra K1 processor.

Now they are going to bring the Tegra K1 chip into its next gaming device offering. Nvidia’s first attempt at a gaming device, the Nvidia Shield was well appreciated for its fantastic specs and ability to play all Android and PC games. The new device will take things forward.
The new offering is stated to be a budget-priced standalone controller. Some speculations in the market are about a Shield Tablet. Nvidia told BBC that they would be coming out with an awesome gaming device soon.

The Nvidia Sheild had some great connectivity features

The Nvidia Shield ran on an Android 4.2 OS and was well equipped to play all high end mobile games. Some folks were disappointed that the system has tremendous potential, and there are not many games that pose a challenge for the device.

One of the best features of the Sheild was the Gamestream. This feature allowed you to live stream your PC games directly on the stream and play them using the Shield’s impressive controls. The only hitch was that the PC should be running a compatible Nvidia graphics card. But if Nvidia comes with a tablet, it will lose the appeal of the physical controller that Shield brought.

Considering the impressive battery found on the Sheild we can expect nothing less from Nvidia’s next offering. In a recent study it was found that even though sales of gaming consoles has dipped, the component producers are doing all right. So we might see Nvidia coming out with more devices in the coming future.

July 15, 2014
Nvidia Introduces The Battlebox Gaming PC (PR)

An ‘elite gaming PC’ is heading to market from graphics card specialist Nvidia.

Nvidia’s GeForce division has announced a new range of incredibly high-end gaming PCs called GeForce GTX Battleboxes, making a clear statement of intent as the AMD-powered next generation of consoles prepares to take the stage.

A BattleBox is a desktop built by Origin PC, approved by Nvidia, and powered by GeForce GTX 780 graphics or better. A system that qualifies as a BattleBox will be capable of playing the latest games at 4K Ultra HD without feeling like you’re watching a slide show. That includes titles such as Batman: Arkham Origins, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Watch Dogs, and Call of Duty: Ghosts. Key to each is an SLI configuration of GTX 780 or Titan cards, backed up by i7 processors and other high-end components. 4K output support is also high on the agenda.

Systems that qualify as BattleBoxes are specially configured versions of Origin PC’s Millennium and Genesis lines, which are available now. The cost of entry for a BattleBox is $2,873 in the US.

[toggle title=”Press Release”]ORIGIN PC announces their strategic partnership with NVIDIA’s GeForce team to design and build 4K-Gaming ready, “BattleBox”, high-performance GENESIS and MILLENNIUM desktops for all gamers and enthusiasts. Approved by NVIDIA and powered by GeForce GTX 780 graphics cards or better, ORIGIN PC’s BattleBox desktops gives you an unbeatable combination of GPU horsepower, NVIDIA SLI, and the highest-grade components available in the market place.

It’s the most you’ll ever need to play this Holiday’s biggest action games, including Batman: Arkham Origins, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Watch Dogs, and Call of Duty: Ghosts at buttery smooth frame rates and even capable of running them all at stunning 4K, ULTRA HD resolutions on your favorite 4K display. GeForce GTX cards also come loaded with an arsenal of game-changing technologies like PhysX, TXAA, Boost 2.0, and frame metering. This gives you the raw speed and performance to take on next-generation technologies like 4K, and experience the fastest, smoothest and most advanced ORIGIN PC BattleBox gaming desktop possible.[/toggle]

October 1, 2013
Nvidia Tegra Note Prototype Introduced To Model Future Tablets

Nvidia has announced an Android tablet prototype called the Tegra Note that it claims is something special.

Marketed as a tablet design rather than as a direct to market offering, the Nvidia Tegra Note is a prototype for Android tablets to be built by Nvidia OEM partners around the world.

NVIDIA says that Tegra Note tablets will be available starting at $199. The seven-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 800. The tablet has a five-megapixel rear camera and a VGA resolution front camera. 16GB of storage is included onboard and the tablet features a microSD card slot for additional storage expansion up to 32 GB.

The main attraction of the Tegra Note is its support for Nvidia’s DirectStylus technology, which lets users create pressure-sensitive pen strokes with a basic passive stylus. The Tegra 4 GPU can also apply image processing to tell the difference between fingers, palms and various stylus tips. Essentially, Nvidia is trying to mimic the benefits of active digitizer tablets, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Note, without the added cost of the digitizer.

Nvidia’s TegraZone gaming will naturally be supported, meaning games that support it can include enhanced visual effects you won’t see on competing devices. It also supports a variety of game controllers for easier gaming than using the touchscreen alone.

September 18, 2013
Nvidia Project Logan Chips For Mobiles Bring PS3-Like Graphics To Your Smartphone

Back in March, NVIDIA showed off its roadmap of its Tegra SoCs and what we can expect from them. Well, it may be late July, and we may be still waiting on Tegra 4 devices to pop up, but NVIDIA clearly hasn’t stopped working. The company recently showcased some of the features in Project Logan, with a large focus on Mobile Kepler.

Today the company revealed that its upcoming mobile chip will utilize the same Kepler graphics architecture found in its latest desktop and laptop GPUs, bringing graphics that exceed PS3 and rival current PCs to smartphones and tablets. Behold Project Logan.

“I think this is the biggest breakthrough in graphics since we introduced the GeForce 256 (graphics chip) 14 years ago,” said Dan Vivoli, senior vice president of corporate and strategic marketing at Nvidia in Santa Clara, Calif., in an interview with GamesBeat. “But this is 400 times more powerful than the original GeForce. This is the most efficient mobile processor ever designed.”

Kepler supports the full spectrum of OpenGL – including the just-announced OpenGL 4.4 full-featured graphics specification and the OpenGL ES 3.0 embedded standard. It also supports DirectX 11, Microsoft’s latest graphics API.

Nvidia’s first Project Logan prototype chips have been back from the factories for only a few weeks, but the company says they are running cool demos such as Ira already.

[youtube id=”Vx0t-WJFXzo” width=”100%” height=”300px”]

[Via]

July 24, 2013
Nvidia Launches The Quadro K6000 – The World’s Fastest GPU

NVIDIA has announced at Siggraph, the annual computer graphics conference, the Kepler-based Quadro K6000. The company says it’s “the fastest and most capable GPU ever built” with twice the graphics capability of the Quadro 6000 predecessor.

The NVIDIA Quadro K6000 GPU is actually a graphics card with the full-featured GK110 graphics processor (Kepler architecture).It comes with 2,880 streaming multiprocessor (SMX) cores (faster visualization and compute horsepower) and 12 GB of GDDR5 ultra-fast memory.

Between that and four simultaneous display links (up to 4K resolution with DisplayPort 1.2), the adapter is five times as fast as the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 GPU (its predecessor) and has twice the graphics capability.

“The Kepler features are key to our next generation of real-time lighting and geometry handling. We were thrilled to get an early look at the K6000. The added memory and other features allow our artists to see much more of the final scene in a real-time, interactive form, and allow many more artistic iterations.”
-Guido Quaroni, Pixar vice president of Software R&D

The “world’s largest and fastest” DDR5 graphics memory enables companies like Nissan to load nearly complete vehicle models, for instance.

The Quadro K6000 is set to hit the market in autumn and will be available through vendors such as HP, Dell and Lenovo, as well as system integrators and partners like PNY.

July 24, 2013
“Mechanical Issue” Forces Nvidia Shield Delay

The Tegra 4-touting Nvidia Shield clamshell portable gaming device was supposed to debut tomorrow in North America.

But due to an unforeseen mechanical issue, the company has been forced to delay the launch until sometime next month, though specific dates were not provided.

During our final QA process, we discovered a mechanical issue that relates to a 3rd party component. We want every SHIELD to be perfect, so we have elected to shift the launch date to July. We’ll update you as soon as we have an exact date.

The issue apparently surfaced during final quality assurance checks, and are being blamed on a third-party component, the name of which was not given. The magnitude of the issue could range from recalibration and tweaking of already-made devices (many of which were likely in transit to North America already) or replacing thousands of faulty components, one by one.

The Nvidia Shield is being met with quiet optimism, as the Android gaming ecosystem has steadily improved since the launch of the TegraZone portal in 2011. Tegra 4 also promises performance up to 10x better than Tegra 3, and some three times faster than the previous-gen Tegra 3.

Nvidia has apologized to those affected, but for anyone who pre-ordered, the one day notice probably stings.

When it arrives, the Nvidia Shield will fill a unique space within the gaming industry, as it’s a portable Android handheld that’s also designed to function as a console, streaming client for PC gaming and a set-top box.

June 27, 2013
Report : NVIDIA Set To License Kepler GPU Technology To Other Manufacturers

We knew NVIDIA had some big plans for the mobile market, but the company has announced just how big those plans are to be. NVIDIA will be licensing it’s Kepler GPU architecture and visual computing patents to manufacturers for mobile products.

This build is found in Nvidia’s GeForce 600-series GPUs and now may end up in graphics cores from other manufacturers, too.

Nvidia said Kepler’s improved performance and efficiency, as well as its Direct3D 11, OpenGL 4.3, and GPGPU capabilities would endear device makers to its licensees. In turn, licensees will receive designs, collateral, and support from the company.

Nvidia said the move has precedent: Nvidia licensed GPU core technology to Sony for the PlayStation 3 game console in past, and also receives hundreds of millions of dollars per year from Intel for the license to Nvidia graphics technology.

Aside from offering smartphone makers the possibility to license its Kepler architecture, NVIDIA has confirmed that it will also offer licensing rights to its visual computing portfolio, thus enabling them the option to design their own GPU functionality.

There’s more to it, as the company has announced that all licensees will get “all necessary designs, collateral and support to integrate NVIDIA’s powerful graphics cores into their devices.”

June 19, 2013
Nvidia Showcases New Stylus Input Technology

Today at Computex, Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang showed off a software-based pressure sensitive display powered by the company’s Tegra 4 chipset, using a normal non-digitizer stylus to draw on it.

As the Verge reports :

Using the third generation of Nvidia’s own DirectTouch technology on a reference Tegra 4 tablet, Huang was able to draw with extreme precision using a very basic and crude conductive stylus. “The precision of DirectTouch is many, many times higher than your normal touch controller,” said the CEO, “the resolution and sample rate are much higher.”

The software is able to sense how much the stylus’ head is pressing down on the display at the point of writing and adjusts the stroke sizes accordingly. Huang also flipped the stylus around to erase what he wrote, and because the stylus had a specific thickness at that end, it’s able to “know” that it should be erasing.

Image Credit : CNET

Also, speaking at Computex, Asia’s biggest PC trade show, Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang told The Wall Street Journal that the Santa Clara, Calif., company is interested in technologies that “fit into its businesses,” but declined to give more specifics. He revealed that Nvidia was open to acquisitions.

The chip maker is expanding beyond selling chips by developing a portable device that can play videogames. The handheld console called Shield will be priced at $349 and is on track to ship by the end of June, Mr. Huang said.

[CNET, Wall Street Journal, The Verge]

June 4, 2013
Nvidia CEO : Windows RT Is Disappointing

Add Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang to the list of people disappointed with the debut of Windows RT.

[pullquote_left] “We expected to have sold more than we did,” he said Tuesday. “I think everybody expected to have sold more than we did.” [/pullquote_left]

Huang was speaking to financial analysts on the sidelines of Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California.

That “everybody” includes companies like Samsung, which launched the Ativ Tab with Windows RT, then canceled its future Windows RT tablet plans.

Toshiba pulled out from Windows RT production before it even released a single RT device.

Meanwhile, next to the Microsoft Surface RT, the Asus Vivo Tab RT,Lenovo Ideapad Yoga, and Dell XPS 10 have been hanging in there.

Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 for Arm-based chips like Nvidia’s Tegra processors. Traditional versions of Windows are written to run on Intel and compatible chips, but they won’t run on Arm processors. With Arm becoming so popular in tablet computers, Microsoft developed Windows RT to match Android.

While Huang’s comments on Windows RT’s current lack of success were to be expected, he then surprised the analysts by his pleas for Microsoft to launch an Outlook client that would run on Windows RT. In fact, he flat out said he has been praying to the “Outlook God” to make this happen.

He stated that if Outlook for Windows RT were released, “It would make my life complete. My life would be complete. I don’t know about you guys but I would need nothing else. I am one Outlook away from computing nirvana and I just hoping he is listening now. Outlook God, please.”

At the moment, the only Microsoft mail client for Windows RT is the Mail Modern app.

March 21, 2013
Nvidia Announces PhysX And APEX Support For AMD-Powered PS4

Nvidia Corp. on Thursday announced support for Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation 4 with the popular Nvidia PhysX and Nvidia APEX software development kits (SDKs). While Sony PS4 will not use Nvidia’s chips, it will still rely on development software designed by Nvidia.

PhysX and APEX technologies are used by developers for collision detection and simulation of rigid bodies, clothing, fluids, particle systems etc on pretty much every current platform. Nvidia PhysX and APEX technologies are designed to run on a variety of CPU architectures and can be accelerated by any modern Nvidia GPU, GeForce 8-series or higher.

[quote]Mike Skolones, product manager for the PhysX at Nvidia, said: Great physics technology is essential for delivering a better gaming experience and multiplatform support is critical for developers. With PhysX and APEX support for PlayStation 4, customers can look forward to better games.[/quote]

Both PhysX and APEX are already integrated into a handful of games. NVIDIA boasts that PhysX alone is featured in more than 150 games, and is used by over 10,000 developers. Some games that are taking advantage of NVIDIA’s technologies include Borderlands 2, the Batman Arkham series, Mirror’s Edge, and Metro 2033.

The Sony PlayStation 4 is based on a semi-custom AMD Fusion system-on-chip that integrates eight AMD x86 Jaguar cores, custom AMD Radeon HD core with unified array of 18 AMD GCN-like compute units (1152 stream processors which collectively generate 1.84TFLOPS of computer power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two), various special-purpose hardware blocks as well as multi-channel GDDR5 memory controller.

The PS4 will come with 8GB of unified GDDR5 memory sub-system (with 176GB/s bandwidth) for both CPU and GPU as well as large-capacity hard disk drive. Sony PS4 will be equipped with Blu-ray disc drive capable of reading BDs at 6x and DVDs at 8x speeds, USB 3.0 connectivity in addition to a proprietary aux port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR wireless technology as well as HDMI, optical and analog outputs. The new system will also utilize new DualShock 4 game controller with integrated touchpad as well as better motion sensing thanks to new PS4 Eye tracking cameras.

March 8, 2013
Nvidia Tegra 4 To Ship In May, Project Shield By July

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huan recently said during the company’s quarterly and yearly earnings call that they did the best work in the company’s history in 2012. The proof is in the revenue which shot up 7.1 percent year over year to a record $4.28 billion.

Quarterly revenue was down 8.1 percent sequentially to $1.11 billion but compared to the same time last year, it was up 16.1 percent. Nvidia also pointed out the fact that they repurchased $100 million in stock and paid a total dividend to shareholders of $46.9 million during the fiscal quarter.

Most important to the company’s growth was the continued success of its Tegra 3 chip, which powered nearly every Android-based tablet in 2012 in addition to Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet.

The company expects its next-generation Nvidia Tegra 4 chip, which is based on ARM’s Cortex-A15 design and has a GPU six times faster than its predecessor, to begin shipping in July. This puts it in consumers’ hands in late July or early August. While this will affects profits for the next two quarters, Nvidia’s CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, said that he wants to ensure his team can push sufficient volumes upon release.

Nvidia Tegra 4 offers manufacturers plenty of reasons to go with Nvidia for future smartphone and tablet designs, but it faces some stuff competition. Recently, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 has become the standard for most high-end releases, while Samsung will challenge with their Exynos 5 Octa chipset to debut later this year. Any delays in getting Tegra 4 to consumers could hurt Nvidia’s chances of gaining a bigger stake in the mobile industry.

The Nvidia Tegra 4 SoC and Project Shield, a gaming device that will launch “in the latter part of Q2,” likely July or August, aims to challenge Qualcomm and Samsung in the mobile processing business. This may pose a huge challenge as Qualcomm already has a more mature architecture in Krait and has integrated a 28nm LTE baseband in its Snapdragon processors.

Due to a lack of integrated LTE, which Huang acknowledges Nvidia will need “to be successful [in the smartphone business],” 2013 will likely focus on pushing Tegra to the tablet market. “We’ll have some phone success this year, but we don’t expect to have a whole lot of phone design wins until we engage the market with LTE.”

The long time to market may hurt Nvidia in 2013 (Tegra 4 was launched at CES in January), but it’s certainly finding success in the mobile business, and that bodes well for the company’s future in light of a declining PC business where high-end GPUs are becoming more of a niche product. Whether it will be able to compete with Qualcomm in the highly-lucrative smartphone market remains to be seen.

Source: Xbit, The Verge, Mobile Syrup

February 15, 2013
NVIDIA launches Tegra 4: with quad-core Cortex A15 and 72 GPU cores !

At CES 2013, NVIDIA has announced their chipset upgrade of the year, The Tegra 4 platform. Even though the chip retains the same 4-plus-1 arrangement of the Tegra 3 Platform, adds capabilities of an impressive 72 GPU cores. That will improve the GPU capability almost 6 times.

The first test this processor was put to live on stage was between itself in an unnamed tablet and the Google Nexus 10 – loading webpages on the Tegra 4 finished almost 50% quicker than the Nexus 10.

Its also the first quad-core processor with Cortex A15 cores on-board, which offers compatibility with LTE networks. NVIDIA also claims this piece of silicon is the world’s fastest mobile processor. in a comparative chart putting the NVIDIA Tegra 4 ahead of the iPad 4 and then the Nexus 10.

The Tegra 4 also boasts of new Photography computational expertise, which will drastically improve the time between an image clicked, processed and saved. NVIDIA said that it will introduce a new mobile processor architecture each year, with the Tegra 4 however it seems the Tegra 3 chipset has been updated.

January 7, 2013