The Nvidia Shield is getting 120fps cloud gaming support, but with a big catch

LovabledanielsMay 12, 202543 Views

A new Nvidia Shield update brings 120fps GeForce Now support
However, it’s only at 1080p – 4K is available only at 60fps
Your TV will need to support 120Hz to benefit

Nvidia is rolling out a new update for the Shield TV with one big feature upgrade as well as the usual bug fixes. The update is for Shield and Shield Pro units, and the headline feature is the arrival of 120fps gaming on GeForce Now for subscribers to the GeForce Now Ultimate membership.

The slightly less good news is that it’s limited to 1080p, meaning it’s not quite a true competitor to 4K 120Hz gaming on the PS5 Pro – although there’s a good reason for this restriction.

Nvidia's Shield TV devices with remotes on a black background — (Image credit: Nvidia)

Why is 120fps gaming limited to 1080p?

The short answer: HDMI 2.0.

The Shield has an HDMI 2.0 output, and that means it has the bandwidth for full quality 4K at 60fps but not 120fps: for that you need the higher bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, which has 48Gbps compared to HDMI 2.0’s 18Gbps.

You can adjust many PC video cards to force 120fps over HDMI 2.0, but doing so is really a hack: it involves reducing the amount of color information and adding subsampling, so the signal being sent at 120fps isn’t as high quality as the un-tweaked 60fps version. Clearly Nvidia has chosen not to do that here.

Although the update is welcome, it does demonstrate that the Shield is getting on a bit: it has similar hardware to the original Nintendo Switch and is still running Android 11, and while it’s great that Nvidia keeps updating it it does feel that it’s time for a new one – not least because it’s facing ever more rivals.

Here’s Nvidia’s release notes detailing what’s been fixed in this latest update.