Okay, so this is mostly just going to be filed under the 'for shits and giggles' category, but Nvidia have just delivered their latest SHIELD Tablet to the office and I've been taking it out for a quick spin.
And what better way to test it's streaming capabilities than taking to the inky black in a shiny new Sidewinder...
Now there are a few Tegra K1 optimised games out there to play natively on the new Nvidia-powered Android tablet, like Portal, Trine 2 and Half-Life 2, and there are loads of games that are configured for streaming from your PC too.
But one of the neat things about Nvidia's SHIELD devices and their Gamestream technology is that, if you point the GeForce Experience software at an executable that isn't on the list of supported games, it will always have a go.
That was all I had to do and the SHIELD Tablet was happily streaming Elite: Dangerous. Getting the wireless controller running in-game was trickier.
Unfortunately there's a little finessing you need to do to get ED to recognise the SHIELD Controller - you need to have a controller plugged into the host machine for the game to realise that it's got one available.
From there it was good to go. All the standard joypad controls worked and, so long as I was relatively close to the router my test rig was plugged into, the streaming quality was great.
Further away and the resolution drops so that it can maintain both low latency for controls and the frame rate, but if you're in the same room as the router you'll be able to indulge in as much space-based piracy as your heart desires.
I've only just started playing with the SHIELD Tablet, but we'll have a full review live when I've spent some time living with the new device. For now though, colour me rather impressed.
