NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 28 January 2013

In this issue:

· GeForce Experience moves to open BETA.

· Once again, the GPU proves to be the critical upgrade to an aging gaming PC.

· Project SHIELD will have a major impact on a lot of different aspects of the gaming industry.

· GTC 2013 will be held March 18-21 in San Jose.

GeForce Experience, Into the Wild

GeForce Experience is a new application from NVIDIA that optimizes your PC in two key ways. It will always keep your PC up to date and optimized for the latest games.

""Even as a devoted tweaker / modder, I'm glad to see this sort of project. Everyone has moments when they want to jump into a new game and play it without fussing with settings and adjustments. If the GeForce Experience application can make that easier, we're all in favor of it."

Last week GFE graduated from closed BETA to open BETA

"This Open Beta allows you access to the one and only GeForce Experience, a system where the teams of professionals and undeniably powerfully-minded graphics know-it-alls of NVIDIA's GeForce ranks have for you sets of optimizations for the games you play all the time. In short: your PC games are about to get a whole lot more awesome."

GeForce Experience automatically notifies you of new NVIDIA drivers and downloads them for you. NVIDIA is constantly working to improve its drivers. New drivers improve game performance, add new features, and fix bugs. It also optimizes graphics settings in your games based on YOUR hardware configuration. The result is that your PC is always kept up to date and optimized for the latest games.

Read more about GeForce Experience on GeForce.com.

Let Me Upgrade, Upgrade U!

We have been saying it for years, The GPU is at the heart of any gaming PC.

"Our current crop of popular PC games has shown us that the video card has now become the most important component in a gaming system. The CPU and the video card used to be of equal importance in the past, but games have become increasingly dependent on video cards as developers have been cranking up the graphics levels."

So NVIDIA drops new, better GPUs at regular intervals. And reviewers put them in to their current, cutting-edge test beds and take them for a spin. But what about the PC that already has a few miles on it? Gamers with older systems often miss out on whether or not a new graphics card will be a meaningful upgrade for aging systems. Not anymore.

"This card currently retails for $229 at NewEgg ($219 with rebate), which is in the so-called "sweet spot" of the GPU market. We figured the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 SuperClocked was exactly the type of mid-level graphics card someone trying to breathe new life into an aging desktop PC would consider."

So does our advice that a GPU upgrade is a big bang for the buck hold up?

"If you've got an older system that loosely fits our specifications, is it worth upgrading? I think so. A new CPU, motherboard, and RAM will run substantially more than the $220 starting price of a GeForce GTX 660 like the EVGA card we've featured here. Moving from the GTX 260 to GTX 660 didn't just improve frame rates -- it gave us sufficient headroom to increase graphics fidelity without losing much in the way of performance."

Project SHIELD Changes Everything

Project Shield rocked CES 2013, bring in a ton of awards.

"NVIDIA's Project Shield was one of the most intriguing new products on display at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. This handheld gaming device combines the latest Tegra 4 SoC with a 5" screen, a console-style controller, and a stock version of Google's Android OS. It can play Android games, of course, but that's only one part of the picture. Project Shield's real allure is its ability to stream PC games from a GeForce-equipped system. That capability made for some pretty neat demos on the CES show floor, and it has big implications for the future of PC gaming."

Experts are predicting it will ignite sweeping change for Android gaming.

"With Tegra 4, NVIDIA promises graphics unlike we've seen before on Android. The brief demo of Dead Trigger 2 was indeed stunning. The Shield has more raw power than the Xbox 360 and it fits in your (admittedly large) pocket."

But Project SHIELD also allows you to stream PC games.

"The prospect of enjoying PC games from any room in the house is pretty enticing."

At its core Project SHIELD is an Android device, and all that that entails.

"The Shield will be a pure Android device with access to all the cool cloud services Google has to offer. NVIDIA could have forked Android and designed its own separate ecosystem for maximum control, but it chose a more open approach. That, along with multiple gaming options is going to earn NVIDIA plenty of fans."

Project SHIELD is a gaming portable for open platforms. Created with the philosophy that gaming should be open and flexible, SHIELD flawlessly plays both Android and PC titles. As a pure Android device, it gives access to any game on Google Play. And as a wireless receiver and controller, it can stream games from a PC powered by GeForce GTX GPUs, accessing titles on its STEAM game library from anywhere in the house.

GPU Technology Conference is Coming

Mark your calendars, NVIDIA will be hosting the fourth annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2013) in San Jose, Calif., between March 18 - 21 - and this year, we're expanding the scope of GTC to cover virtually all GPU-enabled innovation and breakthroughs across academia, science, government, and industry. Read more on the NVIDIA blog.