Nexus 9 or Nvidia Shield

[sonicdude13]

(06-20-2015, 04:43 AM)Nintonito Wrote:

(06-20-2015, 02:43 AM)sonicdude13 Wrote:

(06-19-2015, 09:42 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: I was about to say ARMv7 is no longer supported so yeah, N9 comes automatically

So yea then what the hell was the point of me getting a shield anyway when its no longer supported?
And here I am getting bitched at for not choosing it, so glad I decided with the Nexus 9 in the end, the build quality is fine, and theres no issues with my model.

It's because you're being stupid for buying a device purely for emulation.  The nexus 9 really isn't better at much else.  The shield tablet is far superior for actually native tablet usage.  Buying your tablet based on whether it can hobble half speed in dolphin or not is stupid.

Im not buying shit mainly for emulation at all its just that i was buying either one so that i can keep up with latest hardware and hopefully SOMEDAY ill be one of the people who has a supported device who can run dolphin FULL SPEED!
I'm not stupid at all, hell I have a gamecube in my room if I wanted to play gamecube games and dolphin on my PC if I wanted to run both Wii/GCN games right now...

[Nintonito]

(06-20-2015, 05:18 AM)sonicdude13 Wrote:

(06-20-2015, 04:43 AM)Nintonito Wrote:

(06-20-2015, 02:43 AM)sonicdude13 Wrote:

(06-19-2015, 09:42 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: I was about to say ARMv7 is no longer supported so yeah, N9 comes automatically

So yea then what the hell was the point of me getting a shield anyway when its no longer supported?
And here I am getting bitched at for not choosing it, so glad I decided with the Nexus 9 in the end, the build quality is fine, and theres no issues with my model.

It's because you're being stupid for buying a device purely for emulation.  The nexus 9 really isn't better at much else.  The shield tablet is far superior for actually native tablet usage.  Buying your tablet based on whether it can hobble half speed in dolphin or not is stupid.

Im not buying shit mainly for emulation at all its just that i was buying either one so that i can keep up with latest hardware and hopefully SOMEDAY ill be one of the people who has a supported device who can run dolphin FULL SPEED!
I'm not stupid at all, hell I have a gamecube in my room if I wanted to play gamecube games and dolphin on my PC if I wanted to run both Wii/GCN games right now...

You're a fool if you think the nexus 9 will ever be running a majority of GameCube games at full speed.  And to think that somehow even the prospect of "future proof" hardware is worth actually downgrading the android experience for,  when in reality the nexus 9 isn't nearly that futureproof.  Certainly not with OpenGL 4.4 disabled.

[sonicdude13]

(06-20-2015, 05:37 AM)Nintonito Wrote:

(06-20-2015, 05:18 AM)sonicdude13 Wrote:

(06-20-2015, 04:43 AM)Nintonito Wrote:

(06-20-2015, 02:43 AM)sonicdude13 Wrote:

(06-19-2015, 09:42 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: I was about to say ARMv7 is no longer supported so yeah, N9 comes automatically

So yea then what the hell was the point of me getting a shield anyway when its no longer supported?
And here I am getting bitched at for not choosing it, so glad I decided with the Nexus 9 in the end, the build quality is fine, and theres no issues with my model.

It's because you're being stupid for buying a device purely for emulation.  The nexus 9 really isn't better at much else.  The shield tablet is far superior for actually native tablet usage.  Buying your tablet based on whether it can hobble half speed in dolphin or not is stupid.

Im not buying shit mainly for emulation at all its just that i was buying either one so that i can keep up with latest hardware and hopefully SOMEDAY ill be one of the people who has a supported device who can run dolphin FULL SPEED!
I'm not stupid at all, hell I have a gamecube in my room if I wanted to play gamecube games and dolphin on my PC if I wanted to run both Wii/GCN games right now...

You're a fool if you think the nexus 9 will ever be running a majority of GameCube games at full speed.  And to think that somehow even the prospect of "future proof" hardware is worth actually downgrading the android experience for,  when in reality the nexus 9 isn't nearly that futureproof.  Certainly not with OpenGL 4.4 disabled.

Well eh I don't know im not a techy person like you, but judging from videos of the nexus 9 vs the shield playing dolphin games the nexus seems to run them faster and better for some reason...

[zxcvbad]

Nintonito, Nexus 9 won't rely any longer on GL 4xx, once Base_vertex will be pushed in .349. Dolphin will use buffer_storage simple as that. This fall Vulkan documentation will be available, it'll utilise all the GL part once the drivers comes out. All in all N9 is a better investment atm with it's stronger AArch64. Can't see anything foolish about getting it

[Nintonito]

(06-22-2015, 07:43 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: Nintonito, Nexus 9 won't rely any longer on GL 4xx, once Base_vertex will be pushed in .349. Dolphin will use buffer_storage simple as that. This fall Vulkan documentation will be available, it'll utilise all the GL part once the drivers comes out. All in all N9 is a better investment atm with it's stronger AArch64. Can't see anything foolish about getting it

You realize that base_vertex and buffer storage aren't the only extensions dolphin uses right?  OpenGL 4.5 still holds performance benefits.  And Vulkan won't be in android until next year if that.  Not to mention that dolphin has no plans to even support Vulkan,  and even if it does,  it will probably still makes use of features the Nexus 9 doesn't have.  The shield tablet is useless for dolphin,  but the nexus 9 isn't really hitting home runs.  The low driver overhead is the only thing keeping emulation speed competitive, and other devices are going to catch up quickly. And the shield tablet is better at being an actual tablet.

[zxcvbad]

That's potentially a long discussion but we know what are the main bottlenecks on mobile hardware drivers (that's exactly base_vertex/buffer_storage second extension is already implemented on the v343 that I have on my N9). We also know that Vulkan would be a next step for both ratified hardware and Dolphin, I don't have much of concerns and it's pretty clear from this point we'll get updated driver since Vulkan API on it's own doesn't have "conflicts" with Google's policy of unifying various devices unlike GL4x. Finally I can't see personally that shield tablet would be a better use for me than a Nexus due to things I do on this tablet, so it's personal preferences in most cases. As about no ARMv7 support any longer - even this single reason is good enough to suggest getting N9.

[Nintonito]

(06-22-2015, 10:29 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: That's potentially a long discussion but we know what are the main bottlenecks on mobile hardware drivers (that's exactly base_vertex/buffer_storage second extension is already implemented on the v343 that I have on my N9). We also know that Vulkan would be a next step for both ratified hardware and Dolphin, I don't have much of concerns and it's pretty clear from this point we'll get updated driver since Vulkan API on it's own doesn't have "conflicts" with Google's policy of unifying various devices unlike GL4x. Finally I can't see personally that shield tablet would be a better use for me than a Nexus due to things I do on this tablet, so it's personal preferences in most cases. As about no ARMv7 support any longer - even this single reason is good enough to suggest getting N9.

It will be quite a while before Vulkan is a factor.  Specification isn't done,  hardware won't be announced until next year,  and then android needs to add support.  Google won't support Vulkan until they can standardize it.  That puts us at late next ear,  and I imagine by that point we'd have definitive replacements for both these tablets.  In the short term,  while the nexus 9 has armv8,  I don't really think semi playable dolphin is worth it.  Especially with only 32Gb max storage.  Considering GameCube roms are 1+GB that space will go fast.

[zxcvbad]

Specs and documentation this autumn (Siggraph) , GFXbench 5.0 beta release, hardware is here already (Adreno 4xx, Mali Midgard , K1 etc, basically everything that supports GLES 3.1) There'll be just a drivers releases in most cases.Khronos states that ARM have a prototype driver running on Arndale Octa (so T628 MP6) that's the same for Nvidia and everyone else

[Nintonito]

(06-22-2015, 11:38 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: Specs and documentation this autumn (Siggraph) , GFXbench 5.0 beta release, hardware is here already (Adreno 4xx, Mali Midgard , K1 etc, basically everything that supports GLES 3.1) There'll be just a drivers releases in most cases.Khronos states that ARM have a prototype driver running on Arndale Octa (so T628 MP6) that's the same for Nvidia and everyone else

you're missing the part where Google needs to add official support, otherwise they won't update the drivers with Vulkan.  Not to mention dolphin has zero plans to support Vulkan right now,  and Vulkan is so new that any adoption in apps will be minimal.  Hopefully Google just gets off their ass and uses GL 4.5 from android M onwards,  since Vulkan can mirror most of the functionality if not more.  I would love the nexus 9 to be great,  I really would.  But it's still being held back by Google.  Vulkan does have the power to change google's position, I will give you that.  The question is what happens next.

[sonicdude13]

So for a general gaming tablet the Shield is a good choice but for Dolphin the Nexus 9 is good???