NVIDIA SHIELD TV Code Named MDarcy Leaks On Google Play With Tegra X1, Android 9 On Board
The current NVIDIA Shield TV has been around for quite some; we first reviewed the device way back in 2017. However, over the years, NVIDIA has consistently updated the media streamer with new software to keep it ahead of the pack when it comes to capabilities. In its current incarnation, the Shield TV pairs up with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings to form a powerful smart home trio in addition to being a hub for gaming and online media streaming.
It now looks as if the aging NVIDIA Shield TV is set to get a true hardware update according to a listing that turned up on the Google Play Developer Console Device Catalog. The original Shield console was known inside Google as "darcy", while the new console is listed as "mdarcy." The new console has been confirmed to run Android 9 Pie.
The change for the new Shield TV is an upgrade to a refreshed Tegra X1 T210 SoC. The CPU has four ARM Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 1.9GHz and four Arm Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.3GH. The console is said to run on top of Linux kernel 4.14. Developers expect that the new revision of the Tegra X1 will have a higher maximum GPU clock speed and offer better power efficiency. It's not clear exactly how much better the clock speed on the GPU will be compared to the current device at this time.
Screenshots that have surfaced of hardware details show that the machine will have an NVIDIA Maxwell GPU at 1000 MHz and 2072MB of RAM (TotalMem is 2950MB). The console uses OpenGL ES version 3.2. Since there are several versions of the Tegra X1 and the page for the mdarcy console doesn't call out the specific model for the refreshed console, some of the specs are up in the air.
An upgraded SHIELD TV isn't the only thing on NVIDIA's hardware plate, however. A couple of months back the NVIDIA Shield 2-in-1 Tablet powered by a Tegra Xavier SoC was reported to be in development.
