Android By Ryan Whitwam May. 14, 2014 5:28 pm
Nvidia has been touting the advantages of its Tegra chips for the last few years, but with each new iteration the elegance of the technology fails to translate into device makers actually using it. The Tegra 4 is by no means the disaster that Tegra 3 was, but it’s still only found its way into a handful of Android devices — almost all of them tablets. Even Nvidia’s gaming credentials haven’t swayed the market its way, but maybe it’s hit upon something fantastic with its new alliance with Valve.
Nvidia’s porting of the Source game engine could breathe new life into its ARM chips and finally make a case for leaving Qualcomm behind in some devices. There have been Tegra-exclusive games since the early days of Honeycomb tablets, but the best we could hope for was a port of an indie game from Xbox Live Arcade or the PC. These titles were often a cut above the usual Android gaming content, but it’s not enough to get anyone excited. However, Portal and Half-Life 2 running natively on Android is a bit of a revelation because it reminds us how far mobile games still need to come in terms of design and storytelling.
Nvidia did the work to get Source working on Android long before it made the announcement. Just a few weeks after the news broke, Portal was in Google Play as a Shield exclusive. Oh, and then Nvidia launched Half-Life 2 at the same time, just for good measure. While these games are coming up on a decade old, they’re still phenomenal experiences and look far better than everything else on Android. It doesn’t even matter that these games are only for the somewhat unsuccessful Shield right now — this is Source running on Android.
On the Shield’s 720p screen, both games look great — every bit as good as they looked on PC. You can see where Nvidia had to pull back if you look closely. There’s a bit more aliasing on the edges and a some of the more elaborate physics can cause minimal of lag. Basically, Tegra 4 is right at the edge of its ability with these older Source engine games, but that’s where Tegra K1 comes in. There are tons of newer games running on Source that might be right at home on a more powerful device.
We don’t know how powerful the K1 is going to be, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility Nvidia is planning to push Source engine games even harder. A device like the rumored Mocha gaming tablet might have the muscle to run more modern Source engine games natively on Android. The Tegra K1 will come in two flavors — the first will still be based on Cortex-A15 ARM cores, but later this year Tegra is moving to custom Denver 64-bit cores. Maybe then we’ll see newer games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2.
The game catalog of Source games runs the gamut from classic like Half-Life to new hits like Titanfall. If Nvidia can continue improving its chips and goes after the licensing deals to port more titles, it could have killer exclusive games for years to come. Granted, it will be a few years behind the PC releases, but that could still make for the best gaming experience on mobile devices. It might finally make Tegra desirable for OEMs and consumers alike.
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Nvidia’s porting of the Source game engine could breathe new life into its ARM chips and finally make a case for leaving Qualcomm behind in some devices. There have been Tegra-exclusive games since the early days of Honeycomb tablets, but the best we could hope for was a port of an indie game from Xbox Live Arcade or the PC. These titles were often a cut above the usual Android gaming content, but it’s not enough to get anyone excited. However, Portal and Half-Life 2 running natively on Android is a bit of a revelation because it reminds us how far mobile games still need to come in terms of design and storytelling.
Nvidia did the work to get Source working on Android long before it made the announcement. Just a few weeks after the news broke, Portal was in Google Play as a Shield exclusive. Oh, and then Nvidia launched Half-Life 2 at the same time, just for good measure. While these games are coming up on a decade old, they’re still phenomenal experiences and look far better than everything else on Android. It doesn’t even matter that these games are only for the somewhat unsuccessful Shield right now — this is Source running on Android.
On the Shield’s 720p screen, both games look great — every bit as good as they looked on PC. You can see where Nvidia had to pull back if you look closely. There’s a bit more aliasing on the edges and a some of the more elaborate physics can cause minimal of lag. Basically, Tegra 4 is right at the edge of its ability with these older Source engine games, but that’s where Tegra K1 comes in. There are tons of newer games running on Source that might be right at home on a more powerful device.
We don’t know how powerful the K1 is going to be, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility Nvidia is planning to push Source engine games even harder. A device like the rumored Mocha gaming tablet might have the muscle to run more modern Source engine games natively on Android. The Tegra K1 will come in two flavors — the first will still be based on Cortex-A15 ARM cores, but later this year Tegra is moving to custom Denver 64-bit cores. Maybe then we’ll see newer games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2.
The game catalog of Source games runs the gamut from classic like Half-Life to new hits like Titanfall. If Nvidia can continue improving its chips and goes after the licensing deals to port more titles, it could have killer exclusive games for years to come. Granted, it will be a few years behind the PC releases, but that could still make for the best gaming experience on mobile devices. It might finally make Tegra desirable for OEMs and consumers alike.
More...
