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A new focus on Android gaming has emerged at Google's I/O 2014 event, with Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor showcasing the raw processing potential of the next wave of mobile technology. TK1 - integrating the same Kepler architecture as the current GeForce desktop graphics cards - theoretically has more rendering horsepower than the last-gen consoles, a claim Epic has put to the test by producing a brand new real-time Unreal Engine 4 demo.Dubbed "Rivalry" - and re-using some assets from the now legendary Samaritan demo - the new showcase uses the same rendering pipeline as the full desktop version of the engine, currently being deployed on PC, Xbox One and PS4 projects. The demo, which combines Nvidia's hardware with Epic's engine and new extensions to Android, utilises high-end features such as deferred rendering, physically-based shading, image-based lighting, HDR tone-mapping, and even tessellation for smoke effects.
The claim that mobile technology has reached "console" standards has become something a cliché in recent years, but in terms of raw specs alone, Tegra K1 has the numbers to match the boast. It features one SMX - a cluster of 192 CUDA codes - thought to be running in the region of 950MHz. Compare and contrast with the GT 640M found in the PC-based Razer Edge gaming tablet: that has two SMXs at just over half the clock speed and is capable of running Crysis 3 at better than console settings. If that sounds too good to be true, maybe it is - John Carmack says that we should "take Nvidia's comparisons between their K1 SoC [system-on-chip] and consoles with several grains of salt."
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