News - Half-Life 2 and Portal get Tegra K1 Shield Tablet enhancements

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Shield tablet editions are "as visually rich as the full PC editions of the games".

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I was going to get one of these tablets, until i read the reports about the plastic cracking :(

Such a shame as it ticks almost all the boxes for me.

don't want to be funny but why would I want to play Half life 2 and Portal AGAIN?

The price looks high. Sure it's the same as the PC price (although by itself that's more than you expect on mobile), but Steam has regular deep discounts.

Thought they were being offered free with each purchase as part of the sales pitch, to demonstrate the device and show off it's capabilities.

But to have them available to buy at a higher than expected price is ridiculous considering the age of them and the fact 99% of gamers (you know, the target market for a gaming tablet) already own them.

Still, I like the idea of the Shield and if it really can produce the power to run decent AAA / Indie games while travelling then I'm all for it. In fact, add in Steam OS / or Steam Big Picture Mode with streaming via any newer GPU and i'd be sold.

Dear Santa.....

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Originally Posted by Chadders87

add in Steam Big Picture Mode with streaming via any newer GPU and i'd be sold.

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You mean add in support for AMD, right? Because Steam Big Picture Mode is working today via most 6x0 and 7x0 nVidia GPUs.

These games aren't new releases... well, new ports, they were around for the shield portable before it got renamed. That said, when they came out for the shield portable they ran at 1280x720 with low or medium graphics settings, now they're more like high at 1920x1080.

Here's the shield portable running HL2, note the drop when leaving the train station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFlb7RbdA0

and here's the shield tablet doing the same, again note the drop but it's not as bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtt41XhL6Ic

The amusing thing is the drops in framerate seem to be in similar places, there might be some optimisation issues remaining.

$60 for the controller eh? Bargain.

Worth noting that there are many other tablets that can run HL2 (and indeed any source engine games) at a decent resolution/frame rate, without anything special...

I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of my Dell Venue 8 Pro (refurb, but dirt cheap at £180 with 3G!) - it has an Atom 3740D and is quite happy running stock HL2 and steam :) Equivalent to a low end core i3 or ULV i5 in the benchmarks. No need to repurchase an ARM version and it roughly equivalent in gaming performance to the shield.

Really looking forward to the next generation of atom chips, they are getting really exciting...

Seems quite a high price given the age of the games, but would probably be a fun play if you had the shield to play on (though that itself seems quite expensive!)

Quite impressive the power on offer now. I remember my old desktop struggling to run HL2!
Should be interesting to see what other full games get released

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Originally Posted by Spud1

I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of my Dell Venue 8 Pro (

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Got 4 of these in work at the minute to be used as GUI touch screens for an audio system.
Seem quite decent little units for the money! Won\'t get chance to play games on them though :(

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Originally Posted by Spud1

Worth noting that there are many other tablets that can run HL2 (and indeed any source engine games) at a decent resolution/frame rate, without anything special...

I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of my Dell Venue 8 Pro (refurb, but dirt cheap at £180 with 3G!) - it has an Atom 3740D and is quite happy running stock HL2 and steam :) Equivalent to a low end core i3 or ULV i5 in the benchmarks. No need to repurchase an ARM version and it roughly equivalent in gaming performance to the shield.

Really looking forward to the next generation of atom chips, they are getting really exciting...

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Mmkay, I won't deny that you can do that, however the performance of the GPU in the dell is low to say the least, in desktop terms it comes in below the HD 4000 by about 40%, whereas the K1 comes very close to and depending on the test matches the HD 4400. Again depending on the test, we're looking at 3-6x performance from the K1 over the dell. I think that's why I've bought one, this and android L with android TV should start a trend of 'proper' games on android.

It's true that in raw graphics terms the shield (and most recent ARM tablets) is better is raw numbers, but the performance of the upcoming atom chips is a step up again and will match if not exceed that level, x86 chips are catching up.

It's great that we have the freedom of choice though - I'm excited to get my hands on a decent windows 8.1 tab for the choice and freedom it brings - I don't need to wait for a developer to recompile (and in many cases, rework) their game to play it, I can just install and go. I already know I can play WoW, any source game, Civ 5, Starcraft 2 and Hearthstone with it. I can then use a product like splashtop or gain the streaming benefits. There is no HDMI out but adaptors are cheap enough.

It certainly introduces more complexity, but it is a much more flexible option.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

Worth noting that there are many other tablets that can run HL2 (and indeed any source engine games) at a decent resolution/frame rate, without anything special...

I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of my Dell Venue 8 Pro (refurb, but dirt cheap at £180 with 3G!) - it has an Atom 3740D and is quite happy running stock HL2 and steam :) Equivalent to a low end core i3 or ULV i5 in the benchmarks. No need to repurchase an ARM version and it roughly equivalent in gaming performance to the shield.

Really looking forward to the next generation of atom chips, they are getting really exciting...

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The Asus T100 full windows 8 tablet (including keyboard) runs full PC version of half life 2 very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QwC4IQQJXo

Cheaper, full windows, full mouse support.

Loved both these games!!