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While there is no shortage of Android TV boxes that are capable of simply streaming on-demand services like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, the Shield TV's biggest advantage comes in the form of its gaming chops with GeForce Now and Shadow Play. With the Shield TV, Nvidia has made it possible to stream full PC games either from its GeForce Now servers over the cloud or from your own GTX-powered gaming PC in the home.
I took a detailed look at Nvidia's cloud gaming service back when it was still called ‘Nvidia GRID' back in January 2015. At the time, the service was a tad choppy and had some issues delivering a smooth experience despite having solid internet speeds.
However, a lot has changed over the last year and GeForce Now has greatly improved. While I was previously limited to choppy 720p gameplay, I can now get a smooth 1080p/60 frames per second experience that will rival the current generation of consoles.
To show you just how far things have come, I revisited Batman Arkham City and re-recorded the same section of gameplay that you will find on my previous Cloud Gaming analysis. As you can see from the speed test screenshot above, I am also using the same Virgin Media 150 MB/s connection as last time from the same location. I will once again be utilising Nvidia's ShadowPlay recording feature to minimize performance impact. It is worth noting that even on its highest setting, ShadowPlay can only record at 30 frames per second so keep that in mind.
I will once again be utilising Nvidia's ShadowPlay recording feature to minimize performance impact. It is worth noting that even on its highest setting, ShadowPlay can only record at 30 frames per second so keep that in mind. It should also be said that YouTube videos won't necessarily be a fair representation of graphical quality as the footage gets heavily compressed.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0uJFzi6Zw']As you can see, the experience is much smoother now, which is great as GeForce Now is a paid subscription service.
However, newer triple-A titles like The Witcher 3 do cost extra on top of the £7.99 GeForce Now monthly subscription so that is worth keeping in mind. Speaking of which, Nvidia were kind enough to unlock The Witcher 3 on my account so that I could try it.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hue0K65t8k']The game defaults to 1080p/60 frames per second at the low graphics preset but it results in a decent experience. I have sunk many hours into The Witcher 3 since it launched on both the PC and Xbox One so I was surprised to find just how smooth the experience was playing through the cloud. The game ran much smoother than it does on my Xbox One, which is quite an achievement for cloud gaming.
In-home streaming is also fairly good. Upon launching the app, Steam Big Picture mode will load up on your PC and you will have access to your entire Steam library. However it is worth keeping in mind that if you want to play a game with a secondary launcher like Fallout 4 or Hitman, then you will need to go back to your PC to press play before the game will appear on your TV.
Even over the WiFi, in-home streaming from my gaming rig to the Shield TV was great, I could play games like Shadow of Mordor or Fallout 4 with minimal latency. Rest assured, if you want to bring your PC games to the living room, the Shield TV is capable of handling it as long as your router is up to snuff. In my case, I was using a Linksys WRT-1900ac.
