Dell unveil Concept Nyx, ahead of CES 2022
CES 2022 is a little over a week away, but that is not stopping some folks from releasing some details earlier, case in point, Dell have stepped up to unveil Concept Nyx, a new way to experience PC games in the home, no matter what device you have.
As any PC gamer will tell you, there are generally two ways you can play a game, with a mouse and keyboard or a controller, but those are almost always locked to the screen that the PC is connected to, which is where Concept Nyx steps in. As you can see by the controller design below, you can be in one room of your place, gaming away in whatever title you want, but then realise that you have to move to another space.
In the past, that meant your PC gaming was done for now and would be waiting for you when you returned, but with Concept Nyx, all you do is take the controller and connect it to your TV, or any other display and keep the gaming going.
If that sounds incredible, it might be, this is a concept after all and not a complete product that is set to hit store shelves this year. Glen Robson, the CTO for Client Solutions at Dell explained how it works like this.
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?
As you can see via the graphic below, the Concept Nyx is two parts, first is the actual box, where you PC games live, the second is the controller, so no matter where you go, if your new room has a screen that can connect to the network within your place, you can keep the gaming going.
Beyond that, the team are also seeing about ways in which to allow two people, to play two completely different games on the same screen, though personally, I would not use a phone screen for that. That means that while you might be enjoying a game of Rocket League, your friend might be chilling in Minecraft.
As always, these concepts may not become a full product, parts of it might be taken and added into other items, there is really no way to know. But it is nice to see Dell attempting to change up just how a PC game can be enjoyed in the home, almost like there was something else that Switch’d up how folks played their games.
