The PC will always be my entertainment platform of choice. But there are times when mobile gaming is a lot more convenient: as I sit in the car, waiting to pick my wife up from the grocery store, any time I stand in a long line, and even when I'm sitting on the couch, trying to relax after a long day of work. I don't get serious about mobile gaming, however, unless I'm traveling by air. That's when I can really bite into content that I wouldn't have touched at home.
Understandably, then, I was excited about my first extended stint with Nvidia's Shield mobile gaming console on a flight back to Winnipeg from Montreal (remember, Chris Angelini was the one to write our Shield review back in July). I downloaded a handful of titles from the Google Play store, waited patiently for the stewardess to give me the go-ahead, and I went to town. First, I tried Ravensword 2, which is probably the closest thing that the Android platform has to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. No luck. The Shield's controls aren't supported in the title's gamepad mode. Undaunted, I fired up Galaxy on Fire 2 HD. Once again, no joy. The controller isn't recognized.

There are some really impressive games developed with native Shield support, but those weren't the ones I wanted to play on my flight. One of Android's strengths is a plethora of choice. So, it really seemed like Nvidia missed the boat as a "pure" Android-based gaming platform. I spent the rest of my flight gaming on my Google Nexus 7 tablet, smoldering over the Shield's wasted potential.
A few days later, Nvidia totally surprised me with new functionality. Included in today's over-the-air (OTA) update is a feature that instantly turned my opinion around: the Shield Gamepad Mapper, which lets you map the Shield's joystick and buttons to screen positions, virtual thumbsticks, and even gestures.
What's Included In The October 28, 2013 OTA Update?
Before we dig into the new Gamepad Mapper, let's go over all of the changes rolled into the update:
- Android 4.3 support: this is a fairly straightforward upgrade from the Android 4.2.1 operating system that shipped with Shield. If nothing else, it's nice to see that Nvidia is committed to keeping its console's environment current. As Chris mentioned in our launch coverage, this is "pure" Android, without any of the bloatware other device vendors seem to enjoy bundling.

- Shield GameStream: This is the official introduction of Shield's ability to channel output from a GeForce-equipped PC, an Nvidia Grid cloud gaming service, or the Shield itself to an external display at up to 1920x1080. It's a more formal branding of the streaming feature that was previously in beta. Bear in mind that Shield is limited to PC- or Grid-based games at 1280x720 over Wi-Fi, and 1920x1080 will only be available once the company releases an Ethernet-to-micro-USB adapter. We don't have release date for this adapter, or for the Grid-powered cloud gaming service that we expect to arrive in the future.

- Apps2SD: Previously, Shield wasn't able to properly move application data to its microSD card, effectively limiting software to the device's 16 GB of internal storage. Today's OTA update fixes that issue, and applications that support this feature can now be moved via the Android Settings -> Apps menu.
- Shield Console Mode: This is an operating mode that disables the Shield's built-in display and instead employs mini-HDMI output for use with an external display (television). It's required if you want to take advantage of 1080p support. Currently, this is accessible for Android gaming. In the future, PC game streaming will be enabled by an Ethernet adapter. Although the new mode disables Shield's integrated display, power usage is expected to increase due to the more taxing graphics workload. Console Mode is ideal for use in conjunction with a wireless Bluetooth game controller (like the Nyko Playpad Pro), allowing you to set down the HDMI-attached Shield next to your TV.
- Shield Gamepad Mapper: This is a workaround of sorts for using the Shield's hardware controls in games that don't natively support them. Holding down the Play button brings up a user interface that lets you map portions of a game's screen (or even gestures) to the Shield's buttons and analog sticks. Game profiles are auto-launched, can be saved locally, and can be shared through the cloud or sent to a friend. At least to me, this is one of the Shield's most important features.
Non-OTA Goodies: The Holiday Game Bundle and ShadowPlay

Nvidia's Holiday Game Bundle launches today, and is available two ways. Enthusiasts who buy a GeForce GTX 770 (now priced at $329), 780 (down to $500), or Titan are entitled to Batman: Arkham Origins, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, in addition to a $100 discount on an Nvidia Shield.
The lesser bundle is similar, but doesn't include Batman: Arkham Origins, and the Shield discout is halved to $50. Nvidia's second bundle is covered by the GeForce GTX 660, 660 Ti, 670, 680, and 760.

Today is also the official release of Nvidia's ShadowPlay feature, though it's still in beta. This is Nvidia's real-time game video recording feature that offloads encoding to the Kepler architecture's fixed-function NVEnc block. It's not related to the Shield update, but we're still putting it through its paces.
I stumbled upon the Shield Game Mapper UI by accident, and found it so intuitive that I became productive with the software very quickly. To launch it, simply press and hold the console's Play button, located on the upper-right corner relative to Nvidia's logo button.
The interface centers on a bar of controls. From the left, the first three icons represent the left analog stick, right analog stick, and button gizmos. Simply drag them onto the interface as desired. Once placed, the button gizmo allows you to set the button you wish to activate. Analog stick gizmos can be sized as needed.

The next two items on the menu bar are the pointer and gesture gizmos. The pointer can be used to assign mouse cursor functionality to one of the analog sticks, while the gesture gizmo can be used to program simple or complex finger trace patterns to a single button.
The final two menu bar items are the eraser, which is used to delete gizmos, and the search mapper server button, used to check for existing game profiles that Nvidia (or other users) might have recently created and made available.

Finally, there's a page indicator and page/info menu on the top of the menu bar. From there you can create separate pages of alternate UI settings for the same game, which may come in useful for changing display orientations in different parts of a game (like navigating an inventory screen, for example). There's also a share button you can use to send your map elsewhere via email or upload to the cloud.

Button placements and gestures work like a charm, and we were able to get both Ravensword 2 and Galaxy On Fire 2 HD functioning with Nvidia's mapper. Unfortunately, there are still a few quirks that keep this new feature from delivering an ideal result.
The first problem is that the Shield Game Mapper desperately needs an alternate analog control stick option to emulate aiming in first-person shooters. Instead of emulating a finger's movement 1:1 on the screen, it would simulate a continuous, looping swipe at a speed that depends on how far the analog stick is pushed. If you find this suggestion difficult to understand, it might make more sense after a look at the animated GIF below:

As you can see, the right analog stick is constrained within a boundary, and the only way to fool it into doing what we need is slowly moving it away from the center and snapping it back into place before the game registers this. The solution isn't ideal, but it's playable (and worlds better than the state of affairs before the Game Mapper was available).
The second problem we encountered was specific to Galaxy On Fire 2, and had to do with the analog stick's precision, or perhaps the precision of the game's virtual analog stick detection.

For whatever reason, there's a noticeable disconnect between subtle movements on the analog stick versus what the game sees, and the result is often plain unresponsiveness. I tried changing the size of the analog stick gizmo to see if it would fix my issue, but it didn't. Unfortunately, in a game like this one, where precision aiming is key, this makes the analog stick unplayable. We can still map buttons to the controller and use the accelerometer input option to steer the ship, but that only sidesteps the issue.
Despite those couple of issues, our initial experience with Nvidia's Gamepad Mapper is quite positive, and after talking to Nvidia's team, we're hoping the company can tweak its software to deliver an ideal result. Of course, there will always be games that absolutely require touchscreen functionality (such as Fruit Ninja), but the Gamepad Mapper effectively services the Android gamers who want physical controls in titles that don't currently support them.
As we mentioned, Shield's Console Mode lets you connect a third-party Bluetooth wireless gamepad, shut off the device's integrated 5" screen, and output a 1920x1080 resolution to a big-screen television.
Based on the company's presentations, Nvidia's emphasis is on the benefits this offers to gamers streaming PC games from another room (a feature that is now branded GameStream). Unfortunately, that combination of features can't be achieved yet; streaming at 1080p from a PC to the Shield requires an Ethernet adapter that isn't available yet. Until we can get our hands on that adapter and the next Shield software update, PC-to-Shield streaming is limited to 720p, just as it was in our Shield launch story from last July, Nvidia Shield Review: Tegra 4 Powered Gaming.
Personally, I have very little interest in GameStream, if only because I'd never pick a gamepad and 5" screen over a mouse, keyboard, and full-sized monitor if I was in Wi-Fi range of my PC. If I want to game on my TV, I'll use my HTPC. On the other hand, we toted a Shield along to an event we recently ran, and attendees happily picked it up and streamed PC games from the pub we were in. It seems like the utility of GameStream is largely personal preference.

I am more interested in Console Mode, though. It offers something almost completely overlooked in Nvidia's briefing: you can play Android games at 1080p on a television instead of the Shield's 5" screen. Not only is it extremely gratifying to play Android-based games at 1920x1080 on a TV, but it's also unexpectedly breathtaking to see Unreal Engine 3 and other demanding graphics engines pump out true HD visuals at over 50 FPS. The experience hammers home that Tegra 4 is a capable SoC.
To better evaluate its performance, we benchmarked the Shield in Console Mode at 1080p, and compared those numbers to the results achieved on the integrated 5" display. We're also including the new Nexus 7's performance at 1920x1200 for reference.




As you can see, the Shield holds its own at 1080p, significantly outpacing the Qualcomm S4 Pro-powered Nexus 7 in every test except for one. What we're hoping is that the complexity of mobile games continues to increase, yielding a more immersive experience. Powerful hardware like Shield will play a role in enabling those more demanding graphics.
Finally, let's take power into consideration. Although Console Mode disables Shield's integrated screen, the taxing workload at 1080p is expected to shorten battery life compared to gaming on the mobile platform directly.

And there's the downside to wringing out maximum performance from a console intended for mobile gaming. The battery life we measured drops by almost half. The silver lining is that, when you're playing a game next to your television, it should be easy to keep Shield plugged into a wall outlet, too.
ShadowPlay doesn't have anything to do with Nvidia's Shield update, but the company's proprietary NVEnc encoder is a critical piece of GameStream, so we still wanted to test its capabilities.

Like GameStream, ShadowPlay is controlled from Nvidia's GeForce Experience software. You can set it to Manual mode (start and save recordings on-demand), Shadow mode (always record the last one to 20 minutes of video, and save on-demand), or a combination of both. In-game, controlling ShadowPlay is easy; Alt-F10 saves the Shadow recording and Alt-F9 begins/ends a Shadow recording. A small green dot on the screen indicates a recording in progress, if you want visual confirmation.
Nvidia claims that, unlike Fraps, the performance hit attributable to ShadowPlay is negligible due to its hardware-based nature. Despite initial skepticism, during gameplay, I couldn't tell whether the feature was running or not. In the interest of getting more specific, let's look at the benchmark data at 1920x1080 and 2560x1600. Note that the higher-resolution tests are run at lower detail settings so we can compare playable frame rates around 60 FPS. In addition, it's worth noting that ShadowPlay is currently limited to 1920x1080, so a 1600p stream gets scaled down. Moreover, all of these tests were performed on a platform driven by AMD's $110 FX-4170 CPU.


Regardless of resolution average frame rates take a roughly 10% with ShadowPlay enabled. Given enough performance, I couldn't tell the difference. The higher-resolution result ran into more of a hit to its minimum frame rate, though.
Does encoding video in real-time affect frame time variance?


ShadowPlay has a negligible effect on any of our frame time variance measurements. You can see a few spikes in the over-time chart, but we're already limiting the chart's sample size to 300 frames for readability, and Far Cry 3 inherently demonstrates more variance than other titles.
Next, let's see if the GeForce GTX 660 fares better or worse than a Titan when it comes to ShadowPlay. We again vary the detail levels to keep frame rates in the same ballpark.




Because NVEnc is a fixed-function hardware block, its performance doesn't appear to scale. Instead, we see similar deltas with ShadowPlay on or off.
At the end of the day, ShadowPlay's ability to offload video encoding is very impressive. Capturing boss kills in a game like World of Warcraft is popular, but every genre can enjoy visual commemoration of epic moments. Previously, this was very processing- and capacity-intensive. Now, it's not bad at all. If in-game video capture is important to you, ShadowPlay might be a very compelling feature. In addition, Nvidia will add one-click broadcasting of ShadowPlay to Twitch, a popular online provider that specializes in game video.
Nvidia isn't calling its October 2013 OTA update a re-launch per se, but from where I'm sitting, that's certainly what it feels like. In my opinion, this mobile gaming platform shouldn't have been released without a game control mapper and working App2SD functionality in the first place. As for the new console mode, it takes Android gaming in the living room to another level. The difference that 1080p makes on a big-screen TV is breathtaking, and surprisingly the Tegra 4 SoC handles it with apparent ease. The holiday bundle discounts and Amazon.com availability are further evidence that Nvidia wants to move these things.

So, if we're calling this a re-launch, am I more impressed now than I was back in July? Absolutely. In my eyes, the Shield went from a peculiar alternative to the most attractive portable game console available. And unlike Chris, who was principally interested in PC game streaming, I still cannot bring myself to get excited about that feature. If I'm at home, I can't imagine choosing a gamepad and television over my mouse, keyboard, and monitor. And if I really want to game on the TV, I have an HTPC for that.
For me, Shield is more about playing interesting titles on the road using Google's OS. Android gaming has come a long, long way, and it's not slowing down. There are some great titles out there, and even more impressive content in the pipeline. I'm not a fan of using a simulated gamepad and buttons on a touchscreen, but with the new game mapper, I suddenly have access to thousands of Android titles developed without controller support. And through the new console mode, I can enjoy a lot of those games on a big-screen TV at 1080p. That's a more intriguing proposition than before, when I was toting the console around with me.

Today, the Shield is a lot better than it was at launch. It's still not perfect, though. While the game mapper works well, I did run into quirks at times, particularly when the analog sticks come into play. If Nvidia's software team can improve that functionality, there'd be little left for me to critique. Bottom line: if I had to choose between a $200 Nintendo 3DS XL, a $200 Playstation Vita, and a $300 Nvidia Shield, I'd spend the extra $100 without much thought. And if I were in the market for a GeForce GTX 770 at $330, a 780 at $500, or a 780 Ti at $700, it'd be difficult not to put the $100 holiday bundle discount to use on a new Shield.