NVIDIA SHIELD TV Brings Vulkan in its 3.0 Marshmallow Update

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During the 2016 CES NVIDIA had announced a version 3.0 update for the SHIELD Android TV that even included a preview. So it was widely expected that this would follow along shortly. Then an odd thing happened – The NVIDIA SHIELD tablet got an update, put the update on hold and then re-released with a fix for both the original and K1 tablet versions. During this time mum was the word on the Android TV. Finally the update was released yesterday and so far impressions on the NVIDIA Forums have overall been positive.

The million dollar question seems to be what caused the delay. While it’s not definitive I figured I’d post a Twitter conversation here with a Product Manager for the SHIELD devices and let you judge for yourselves.

I had to look this up and when thinking about it the timing makes sense. As covered last week Vulkan’s original target date for release was the end of 2015. As they were one of the first to integrate Vulkan support, NVIDIA likely had been working on this for some time but had to sit on it to wait for the official 1.0 specification to be released.

NVIDIA asks that you reply on their forums or contact their support if you do experience an issue. Also please keep in mind that just like the SHIELD tablet updates you will have the ability to treat a MicroSD card as internal storage. Should you choose to do this your card will be erased so please make sure to back up any stored data prior to this step. We’re also discussing it on our forums so feel free to join the conversation and give your feedback there as well!