Nvidia Shield Portable Games Console Review

Gaming On Nvidia Shield

For the most part, the Nvidia Shield is your typical Android powered device, it features Android KitKat and supports the hundreds of thousands of apps you’ve come to know and love over the years. The Google Play Store is in place, all your touch screen games work (although portrait mode is a handful at times) and that’s that. The bonus being that the Tegra 4 is incredibly powerful, so no matter what game you throw at it you can expect blistering performance and graphics.

The real magic is in the GameStream PC settings, so long as you have the requirements to do so. You’ll need a GeForce GTX 6xx series graphics card, a good quality router to handle the video stream, the latest drivers installed and that’s it, you’re good to go. Sorry AMD fans, this won’t work on your GPU. The Shield detects systems with compatible Nvidia hardware in your local network automatically and setup from here only takes a few seconds as you need to enter a code into a pop up on your selected desktop PC, this only needs to be done once to active.

Streaming settings are easily configured from the menu, and you can enable or disable streaming from any available computer on this screen.

Streaming over WiFi can be demanding, but you can toggle the quality up or down to suit your needs, we’ll be leaving it at maximum speed, although AUTO is recommended for most users.

Ethernet connections offer higher bit rates, but you’ll need a 3rd party USB OTG LAN cable adaptor to do this (really not needed, but it’s nice to have the option).

Hit the Shield button and your game library is displayed, this is the same list of games you’ll find in the Nvidia GeForce Experience software on your desktop, but you can manually add other games if you wish via the desktop software.

You can launch right into a game, but I selected Steam, here you can see the Shield screen mimics the desktop screen and is showing Big Picture Mode. Typically I leave my PC monitor off when streaming anyway and since the Shield can wake my PC via LAN, I don’t have to get out of bed to enjoy a few games of DiRT 3. It’s a form of technology I’ve never needed in my life, but now that I have it, it’s absolutely fantastic!

Or of course you can plug-in a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable (only a few £/$ from eBay) and you can wire the controller direct to your TV or display device in console mode, even adding a wireless controller, or Xbox 360 controller via a USB OTG adaptor, so you’re not exactly short on options on “how” you want to play with your Shield. You can also opt to use a micro USB to RJ45 adaptor to get a LAN connection, giving you maximum connection speed for a better streaming quality, making it ideal for streaming to your big screen TV.