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Apr

[Upcoming] Three New Games Designed For Tegra Devices - Riptide GP, Galaxy On Fire 2, And Pinball HD

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Games, News

Yesterday we told you about an upcoming Tegra-specific game from Playbox called Bang Bang Racing. Today, we have a real treat for you - a sneak peak at three more upcoming games for Tegra devices that are sure to blow your mind (no less!).

The three titles in question are Riptide GP, a port of the popular aquatic racing game Hydro Thunder Hurricane; Galaxy on Fire 2, a space-based action RPG; and Pinball HD, a high-definition twist on an arcade classic.

Riptide GP

When I was a child, I loved the arcade game Hydro Thunder, and when it finally came out for consoles, I was elated.

Apr

NVIDIA Sets The Record Straight: "We Will Support All Tegra Devices As Long As Their Manufacturers Do"

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Adam, Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, gTablet (SMB-A1002), Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Iconia Tab A500, News, Notion Ink, ViewPad 7, Viewsonic

Last Updated: April 29th, 2011

There has been a lot of confusion regarding this post on NVIDIA's Tegra developer forum that was misconstrued as vaguely implying NVIDIA would stop supporting the "Harmony" generation of Tegra devices going forward (ViewSonic gTablet, Notion Ink Adam, ViewSonic ViewPad 7, Advent Vega, and others) and would instead only stick to the "Ventana" generation. Rather than panicking and freaking out, we pinged our contact at NVIDIA to get a straight answer and held off until we heard the official response.

To clear up the air right off the bat - the issue was blown way out of proportion and in no way pertains to actual production devices.

Mar

Adobe Flash 10.2.155.67 For Android Leaked, Includes Honeycomb Compatibility - Download It Now!

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, Gingerbread 2.3, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

Remember that new version of Flash we reported on this morning? Yeah, well it's still scheduled to roll out on March 18th - one week from today - but thanks to BBCrackman from My Droid World, you can download a leaked copy of version 10.2 now.

Just as promised, it (finally) includes support for Honeycomb, meaning you can now watch South Park, Conan, or any other Flash video on your XOOM. Artem and I briefly played with it on our XOOMs, but unfortunately, we discovered that the experience wasn't without its flaws - video quality wasn't exactly top-notch, some controls were hard to utilize, and no, Hulu still doesn't work.

Mar

Playstation Suite Will Be Hitting Tegra 2 Android Devices Later This Year

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, Games, News

Those of you Android users who were hoping that you would get some Playstation love without having to buy the upcoming Xperia Play (dubbed the Playstation Phone by some) just got some good news. The Playstation Suite, Sony's framework that will integrate much of their gaming experience into Android, will be available for Tegra 2 devices later this year.

It was revealed in NVIDIA's Tegra Zone app that original Playstation games Wild Arms, Cool Boarders 2, and Syphon Filter will be among those available. One secondary source reported that certain PS2 games would also be added to the suite, but that was never posted in the announcement.

Mar

NVIDIA's Tegra 2 Dual-Core CPU Confirmed To Be Powering Some Galaxy S II Handsets

Posted by Zak Stinson in Galaxy S II, News

On Wednesday night, NVIDIA confirmed a rumour that had been swirling around for the last few days. According to a presentation they gave and attended by the folks at ITProPortal, NVIDIA's dual core Tegra 2 chipset is powering three major handsets right now: the Motorola Atrix, the LG Optimus 2X, and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II.

When first announced, the Galaxy S II was said to be packing the Exynos, Samsung's own SoC. Now it is clear that they will be releasing two versions of the new device, either with their Exynos Chipset or NVIDIA's. ITProPortal speculates that Samsung is doing this to boost the number of handsets that can be moved to market, as production of the Exynos is still ramping up.

Mar

New Tegra Zone App Makes Finding Tegra 2 Games A Breeze

Posted by Will Shanklin in Adam, Applications, Atrix 4G (Olympus), Games, gTablet (SMB-A1002), Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Optimus 2X (Star, p990), XOOM

With the wave of Tegra 2-powered phones and tablets that is already on its way, there lay a potential of a fragmented Android Market: those apps that require NVIDIA's new dual-core processor, and those that don't. Frustrating time spent searching the Market in vain could have loomed on the horizon. Thankfully, somebody was thinking ahead, as the Tegra 2 search engine Tegra Zone has arrived to help avert such confusion.

Tegra Zone gives you every Tegra 2-specific game in one place, including all the showcasing one would expect (screenshots, HD videos, etc.). While the app will become more and more useful as time passes (and more Tegra apps and devices hit the streets), there is already a burgeoning library in the making, including: Dungeon Defenders, Samurai 2, and a newly optimized version of Fruit Ninja (dubbed Fruit Ninja THD).

Feb

The Flood Of Tegra-Optimized Games Begins: Fruit Ninja THD And Backbreaker THD Now In The Market, 'Cept You Probably Can't Play Them

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Apps/Games, Editorials, News

The raw power behind NVIDIA's soon-to-be ubiquitous Tegra II chipset makes for some interesting possibilities when it comes to gaming. However, there are certain pitfalls when one manufacturer leap-frogs the competition. Being the first to market in this latest generation of system-on-chips, NVIDIA has developers and exclusives pretty much at their beck and call. Who are you doing to develop for, the company with a multitude of devices hitting the market right now, or the "other guys" without any firm release date? NVIDIA's in a strong position right now, and it's going to do its best to solidify that.

Some of you may recall the stunt NVIDIA pulled with their PhysX engine, essentially crippling graphics on hardware without PhysX enabled - namely their ATI rivals.

Feb

NVIDIA Reveals Project Kal-El: A Quad-Core CPU For Mobile Devices, Coming To Tablets By August 2011, Phones By Christmas

Posted by Zak Stinson in News, Videos

NVIDIA has been the talk of Barcelona for the past couple of days. Many of the premier devices announced at Mobile World Congress, such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the LG Optimus Pad, have been packing the new dual-core Tegra 2 chipset. Hot on the heels of these hardware announcements, NVIDIA just revealed the quad-core successor of the Tegra 2 to the world (which may or may not end up being called Tegra 3).

Dubbed "Project Kal-El", this mean little chipset is said to bring five times the processing power of the Tegra 2. In addition to the 4 CPU cores, Kal-El includes not 1 and not even 4, but 12 (!) GPU cores.

Feb

LG Announces The Optimus Pad, 8.9 Inches Of Pure Honeycomb

Posted by Brian O'Toole in LG, News, Optimus Pad / G-Slate, Videos

Yesterday's announcement by Samsung of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 might have seemed like something of an echo of the Motorola XOOM. Well, with LG's recent unveiling of the Optimus Pad at MWC, we can still see some resemblance but with a few alterations making it worthy of further attention.

First up, the Optimus Pad refrains from the somewhat popular 10-inch screen diagonal seen on both Motorola and Samsung's tablets. If you have doubts about the handiness of a 10-inch device, it seems that LG shares your sentiments: the Optimus Tab scales the display back to 8.9 inches, while maintaining a similar 1280x760 WXGA resolution.

Feb

LG Optimus 2X Review Roundup: Fantastic Hardware, Questionable Execution

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in LG, Optimus 2X (Star, p990), Phone Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Ah yes, dual-core smartphones are no longer just a sweet, geeky dream; the LG Optimus 2X, the world's first Tegra 2-powered handset, is finally here. And with an amazingly thin design, an 8MP camera capable of 1080p video recording, and HDMI mirroring, the device has a lot going for it.

But does it live up to these high expectations? The early reviewers seem to be split - some of them found that the device went above and beyond their expectations, while others were slightly disappointed by its performance. Read on for four different opinions of the device.

Engadget

I was a bit surprised to see that Engadget gave the Optimus 2X a rating of 6/10 - after all, they freely admit to being "unabashed spec junkies." However, their complaints certainly make sense - the software is, apparently, quite buggy, and the Tegra 2 CPU hasn't been used to its full potential (at least not yet).