Alienware Smashes Space-Time Boundaries with Concept Nyx

[TheLostSwede]

It's one of the most common and frustrating problems - having multiple gamers under one roof competing for access to their favorite titles and totally crushing Wi-Fi bandwidth. Or is it??? We're always thinking ahead to the future - near and far - and thinking about the ways we can provide the best gaming experiences out there. Which is why we're incredibly stoked about potentially solving one of the biggest challenges in PC gaming and changing the game completely: how to simultaneously allow players in a household to easily access their full game library and play on any device, even if they want to change screens during gameplay. A tall order, but Alienware is hurtling towards a solution. We call it Concept Nyx.

An R&D project from our consortium of wizards also known as our Experience Innovation Group (EIG), The Concept Nyx solution comes in the wake of other audacious Alienware initiatives that have broken boundaries and elevated the PC gaming experience: from creating our thinnest gaming laptops to date with the Alienware X Series to bold gaming ideas like Concept UFO. Now we've done it again, literally breaking the mold of the PC gaming experience with an eye toward the future.




Imagine you're on your desktop in your bedroom exploring Night City in CyberPunk 2077. Your roommates are on their laptops and tablets in the living room, battling head-to-head in Rocket League. And your cousin is also over, casually building a new world in Minecraft on her cell phone. Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates - you can quickly switch to your CyberPunk 2077 experience on the 65-inch TV in the living room and let them takeover exactly where you left off, advancing your game while you cook.

That's the future of gaming! And it's starting to take shape today.

How would it be done, you ask? Concept Nyx spotlights the role edge computing could play - where high performance game processing could be done in the home and shared across the local network. Because the processing happens locally (versus needing to travel to and from distant servers), it could offer lower latency, greater bandwidth and more responsiveness - ultimately solving some of the performance shortfalls of current alternatives like cloud gaming. This means multiplayer latency could reach single-digit milliseconds to dramatically decrease any lag of modern-day cloud gaming systems. Pretty cool, huh?

It doesn't stop there either. We have been looking at how to power four game streams simultaneously, smart switching among devices, and drawing from a central library of all your games regardless of where you purchase them. Gaming on Concept Nyx aims to be as effortless as accessing your favorite music, TV shows and movies. Imagine a simple app loaded on each device delivering instant access to all your games for a more seamless gaming experience across devices in the home. Imagine no more fighting with your family or roommates over game time (you can still fight over groceries and laundry). Wouldn't it be nice to tear down the barricades so that everyone can game on their own terms?

Alienware loves a challenge. We were founded on a challenge, to create a new market for high-end gaming PCs back when none existed. We're especially excited about this concept because of its uniqueness as an idea and its potential for the gaming industry at large - we could imagine this appealing to not only casual gamers, but the ok-I'll-have-a-go gamers, next generation gamers - the whole family. Given our sci-fi bona fides, we're thrilled to boldly go where no brand has gone before.

As we further develop Concept Nyx, we aim to use each step forward to benefit future products and enhance the user experience. We hope you're as jazzed as we are to embark on this journey, and we look forward to keeping you in the loop.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[dyonoctis]

Interesting technology, but dodgy use case. Roommates don't share "game time". Everyone just get their own device, and if I'm playing a solo RPG, I'm not going to let my roommate advance in the story for me, wtf ? I am starting to doubt that the people who wrote this are actually gamers.

All I'm seeing is that it's basically steam remote play, but optimized to a local network, can switch device on the fly, and not limited to a single game store.

 

[Chomiq]

I bet it's also full of proprietary hardware and would cost something like $10000+ since it's Alienware.

 

[AusWolf]

"Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates" - I do WHAT!?

Interesting technology, but dodgy use case. Roommates don't share "game time". Everyone just get their own device, and if I'm playing a solo RPG, I'm not going to let my roommate advance in the story for me, wtf ? I am starting to doubt that the people who wrote this are actually gamers.

I totally agree. Sharing game time in a single player game is something I would never do, even if someone paid me for it.

 

[TheLostSwede]

"Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates" - I do WHAT!?


I totally agree. Sharing game time in a single player game is something I would never do, even if someone paid me for it.

Well, you could pass it to the badger that lives in your garden if you don't have a roommate...

 

[AusWolf]

Well, you could pass it to the badger that lives in your garden if you don't have a roommate...

Nah. My story is my story - I don't want anyone else to continue it (and F it up) while I'm gone. Luckily, my girlfriend doesn't game, se we don't have this issue.

 

[Bomby569]

Imagine you're on your desktop in your bedroom exploring Night City in CyberPunk 2077. Your roommates are on their laptops and tablets in the living room, battling head-to-head in Rocket League. And your cousin is also over, casually building a new world in Minecraft on her cell phone. Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates - you can quickly switch to your CyberPunk 2077 experience on the 65-inch TV in the living room and let them takeover exactly where you left off, advancing your game while you cook.

this seams like a solution for a problem i don't have. i also think he's going to burn the dinner if he starts to play CP77 at the same time

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Imagine you're on your desktop in your bedroom exploring Night City in CyberPunk 2077. Your roommates are on their laptops and tablets in the living room, battling head-to-head in Rocket League. And your cousin is also over, casually building a new world in Minecraft on her cell phone. Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates - you can quickly switch to your CyberPunk 2077 experience on the 65-inch TV in the living room and let them takeover exactly where you left off, advancing your game while you cook.

this seams like a solution for a problem i don't have. i also think he's going to burn the dinner if he starts to play CP77 at the same time

Tbf it's the solution to a problem I don't have but might face, Might face, once in life, well worth investing in.

And on the heels of Intel's distributed network, edge compute pr release ,same as this shot but not Alienware shit it's double meh.

 

[AusWolf]

Imagine you're on your desktop in your bedroom exploring Night City in CyberPunk 2077. Your roommates are on their laptops and tablets in the living room, battling head-to-head in Rocket League. And your cousin is also over, casually building a new world in Minecraft on her cell phone. Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates - you can quickly switch to your CyberPunk 2077 experience on the 65-inch TV in the living room and let them takeover exactly where you left off, advancing your game while you cook.

this seams like a solution for a problem i don't have. i also think he's going to burn the dinner if he starts to play CP77 at the same time

Tbf it's the solution to a problem I don't have but might face, Might face, once in life, well worth investing in.

And on the heels of Intel's distributed network, edge compute pr release ,same as this shot but not Alienware shit it's double meh.

Honestly, is it a solution to a problem that anyone has?

To me, this seems nothing more than a good basis for a "What Dell thinks gamers want / what gamers actually want" meme.

 

[dayne878]

To be honest, this is a solution to a problem (at least in the use scenario outlined) that very few people have. That said, it could be a good solution for you to say go from your desktop down to your 65 inch TV to pause and play as dinner is cooking, or to stream on your phone while watching TV with the family, etc. But to suggest you'd just "share game time" with other people is kind of silly. I would maybe share game time with my kids in a more kiddy game, and hand it off to them while making dinner, but it still feels like a solution in search of a problem.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I'll take "fixing a problem nobody has" for $500 alex.

The only thing this may do well is remote play, something that, if you are on LAN, valve already solved years ago with steam. About the only thing it cant do is hot swappingto another workstation, which most people dont do because they usually have 1 or 2 places they game, not all over the house.

This would have been much more interesting if it had been, say, an in home solution for game streaming, like a box that had hardware in it that multiple people could play games on at once, ala nvidia's cloud gaming, but all local. THAT could be legitimately useful for a multi person family that are all gamers.

 

[MentalAcetylide]

Honestly, is it a solution to a problem that anyone has?

To me, this seems nothing more than a good basis for a "What Dell thinks gamers want / what gamers actually want" meme.

"If you can't find problems that would sell your solutions, fabricate them! Then convince consumers they have or will have those problems in the future and that they should buy your solution." -Profiting In Bastardized Business Models 101

Seriously though, I know of a few cities where there are multiple families living in the same house or apartment in order to save money. I'm not sure if this is becoming even more prevalent, but it does exist and is more common compared to 15 years ago. However, I must admit that if gaming has become so important to one's life that they can't turn it off for 5 minutes and relocate to a different room and need some fancy setup for seamlessly relocating their gaming sessions, they have bigger issues.

 

[Vayra86]

"Now let's say it's time to prepare dinner so you head downstairs and pass the controller to one of your roommates" - I do WHAT!?

Prepare dinner: Walk to fridge, select package, introduce to microwave, press button. Beep.

Roommate's out smoking.

Alienware's gone crazy

 

[Easy Rhino]

This is literally a solution in search of a problem.

 

[R-T-B]

Well, you could pass it to the badger that lives in your garden if you don't have a roommate...

I ate him.

 

[Mussels]

This concept has been around for years (i mean, i run moonlight and steam streaming here - i can already do this) but if they implement it well, it'll be good.


I like the idea of one powerhouse machine, that can stream multiple games to multiple displays.

 

[MentalAcetylide]

This is literally a solution in search of a problem.

Yeah, its like we have enough problems as it is. Now we have solutions trying to find problems.

This concept has been around for years (i mean, i run moonlight and steam streaming here - i can already do this) but if they implement it well, it'll be good.


I like the idea of one powerhouse machine, that can stream multiple games to multiple displays.

So I take it Alienware is trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak? I guess they're making it so idiots like myself can do what you do with streaming.

 

[Mussels]

Yeah, its like we have enough problems as it is. Now we have solutions trying to find problems.


So I take it Alienware is trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak? I guess they're making it so idiots like myself can do what you do with streaming.

Thats how i see it. They want to sell you a gaming server, and then you run their app as a client to play the games. More people pop on at the same time, FPS lowers and dynamic resolution kicks in.

This sells hardware, and the software gives them their valuable tracking info on their userbase