Nvidia Shield TV questions

by DNEAVES

Hey there. I'm considering getting a Shield, and just wanna know a few things that would certainly help me decide if I want it now, or later.

Right now, I'm about $500 away from finishing a super desktop for gaming and music production. I also have a chromecast in a TV placed directly above my monitor. That TV also connects to my Xbox 360 (out of Live), WiiU, N64, and NES

Now why would I want a Shield when I have all this and am about to finish a super computer? Well I was looking for a better supplement than my chromecast for TV features like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc. Plus a part of me misses a bit of console gaming (I haven't touched my Xbox in God knows how long, and the WiiU doesn't count much)

I liked a few gaming features of the Shield, and wanna hear some feedback on them.

Shield offers a "Netflix, but for games" service, if I remember reading correctly. How is this, and can these games (or any game, for that matter) be played in a local 2-player fashion (providing I got a second controller)? Good or bad feature?

I also saw that you can stream some games from your own computer (if you have an Nvidia graphics card of some series or better), including Steam games or Battle.net games. How are these, too? Can these also be played co-op? Good/bad?

Then it has Google Play installed. Can I link it to the same Google account that I use on my Galaxy, and download already-purchased games, like Minecraft:PE?

And at the end of the day, is the 16GB or the 500GB Shield more worth it? I planned on getting the remote either way, how is it, functionally?

Thanks for the help, guys!

vectorzulu

Q1: Geforce Now works great as long as you have high speed internet and a decent router. If the game supports multiplayer then you can connect another controller and use it. I often play the Lego games with one Shield controller and one Xbox 360 controller. Most games are advertised at 1080p60.

Q2: I haven't used Gamestream myself,maybe someone else can chime in.

Q3: Yes, as long as the games support Android TV. Some games don't have official support for Android Tv,but they are playable when sideloaded.

Q4: Go for the 16 GB model, with MM you can add external storage as an extension to internal storage. The 500 GB model has issues. The remote is nice and light weight, great when not playing any games.

Aii_Gee

For your usage, I don't think a Shield TV would be worth it for you and you don't need it. But I'll answer your questions anyways.

Geforce Now, the 'Shield Netflix' is not good. My internet connection surpasses all of Nvidia's requirements by the input lag is very noticeable in some games. Plus the game library is simply very poor and it's not really growing at all. And no Geforce Now doesn't support 2 player coop games.

The game streaming feature, Gamestream, actually works very well, especially if your Shield TV is hooked up via ethernet cable. I'm not sure, but I don't think Gamestream supports two player coop games. Which also begs the question, why would you use Gamestream when your TV is already right above your monitor. The simpler solution would be to just connect your computer to your TV, where you would have no trouble playing PC games that support coop.

As for Google Play, yes Android TV supports Google Play like your smartphone does. But the Google Play Store on Android TV doesn't have all the apps you have for your smartphone. Apps need to be optimized for Android TV before they can be made available on Android TV. So if the app you bought on your smartphone is also available for Android TV, you can simply download it without paying again, if it was not made available you can't download it. As for Minecraft PE I'm not sure whether or not it's compatible with Android TV.

With all that being said, again I don't think you need the Shield TV, save that 200 dollars and just build your PC. It's gaming features won't be of much use to you as far as I can tell and stuff like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube can simply be done through Chromecast.

Ariakkas10

Why not just get a ps4 or xbone and do it right? The games on the shield are.... Subpar to say the least(imo) and gamestream games are a step up, but not by much, and it doesn't seem to change or grow.

I don't have an xbone but it supposedly has better media capabilities than the ps4 and the ps4 is quite nice. Has all the necessary names...hbo, showtime, twitch, Netflix, plex, youtube, and there is a decent enough media remote to go with it.

That said, I have a Shield and absolutely love it, but just for its media capabilities alone. I don't game on it.

yepyoureyouryore

I use Gamestream on wireless across my house.

Nvidia Shield TV Pro, Asus RT-ac87u, and Nvidia GTX 970.

Works perfectly on the 5ghz band - I only have 2 bars in the bedroom on the Shield, and I stream 1080P. I played about 3 hours last night and had 1 instance of judder for ~1s, followed by a "high latency" popup in the top right that went away immediately.

My only negatives about Gamestream are that: (a) it basically just mirrors your main display, and sometimes the mouse appears in-game,

(b) the computer isn't usable while using Gamestream; it's showing the game being played, and

(c) I haven't figured out how to get sound working on the Computer while playing on the PC rather than over Gamestream. There's probably a box unticked somewhere, haven't delved that deep.

If you have an android device, you can download Moonstream to see if your home network is strong enough, plus an approximation of how it'll look. I like it.