- A new NVIDIA Shield update provides GeForce 120FPS support now
- However, it’s only 1080p – 4K is only available at 60 frames per second
- Your TV must support 120 Hz to benefit
NVIDIA is deploying a new update for the Shield TV with a major functionality upgrade as well as the usual bug corrections. The update concerns the Shield and Shield Pro units, and the functionality is the arrival of 120 images per second on GeForce now for subscribers to the GeForce Now Ultimate membership.
The slightly poorer news is that it is limited to 1080p, which means that it is not quite a real competitor for the 4K 120Hz games on the PS5 Pro – although there is a good reason for this restriction.
Why is the 120 image game per second limited to 1080p?
The short answer: HDMI 2.0.
The shield has an HDMI 2.0 output, which means that it has the bandwidth for the full quality 4K at 60FPS but not 120FPS: for this, you need the higher bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, which has 48 GBPS compared to the 18 GBPS of HDMI 2.0.
You can adjust many PC video cards to force 120 images per second on HDMI 2.0, but this is really a hacking: it involves reducing the amount of color information and adding sub-sample, so the signal sent to 120 images per second is not as high quality as the unsafe 60FPS version. Obviously, Nvidia chose not to do it here.
Although the update is welcome, it demonstrates that the shield is a little: it has a material similar to the original Nintendo switch and always executes Android 11, and although it is great that Nvidia continues to update it, it seems that it is time for a new one – especially because it faces more rivals.
Here are the publication notes of Nvidia detailing what was corrected in this last update.
- Corrects the sautéed night mode when DAP is on.
- Dolby Vision Content Stoters correction when the framework correspondence function is activated.
- Correction of the audio resolution of content content when using a USB DAC.
- Add the HQS / Maxrate Back option for USB audio.
- Correction of USB TV tuner with the live application of the chain.
- Corrects reading problems in Plex when using AAC 5.1 audio.
- Fixed connection problems with third -party remote controls after sleep or restart.
