14 DAY TRIAL // Handheld game consoles are fine for games whose resolution would look blocky and painful on normal monitors, but that does not apply to modern devices of that sort, and to NVIDIA SHIELD much less, so the Santa Clara company decided to do something about it.
In truth, NVIDIA started to “do something about this” about a year ago, when it introduced the GameStream technology.
GameStream enables the SHIELD to stream the gameplay over Wi-Fi. That sounds like you can basically use it as a controller, while the game window/fullscreen shows on your monitor or TV, but it would be a false assumption to make.
What the tech does is the opposite: streams games from your PC, or the cloud, to the SHIELD.
NVIDIA has announced the “NVIDIA GameStream-ready” ecosystem of certified PCs and Wi-Fi routers.
GameStream came out of beta about two months ago, so it's not that shocking that NVIDIA would use the Consumer Electronics Show as a launching pad (CES 2014).
CES will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, from January 7 to 10, which means from tomorrow all the way through Friday.
There, people can visit NVIDIA's booth and actually try out the feature, playing games on the small screen as easily as they would watch a Netflix film.
GameStream supports over 50 games, as well as 1080p video playback at a frame rate of 60 fps (frames-per-second).
Pretty much every game desktop maker that regularly outfits its computers with NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics cards will have the GameStream-ready label on them, or will be eligible for it.
All of them will have the Geforce Experience software pre-installed, which is really the only requirement, so you should be able to get GameStream to work on a DIY system too (a computer you assemble from parts individually bought online or from actual stores). Check out the list of supported PCs and routers in case you're in the market for one.