The Verge - Entertainments |
- Alienware’s Concept Nyx aims to let you cast your PC games to any screen you own
- Samsung’s new 2022 TVs bring Nvidia GeForce Now and Google Stadia gaming
- YouTuber figured out Asus Z690 Hero motherboards melted down due to backward capacitor
| Alienware’s Concept Nyx aims to let you cast your PC games to any screen you own Posted: 02 Jan 2022 09:01 PM PST  For CES 2022, Alienware is showing off its Concept Nyx, which imagines a future when loading and playing games on a variety of screens can happen as instantaneously as streaming music and TV shows. The idea is simple on its face (though undoubtedly complex underneath the veil): through the Nyx software, all of your PC games would be available to stream wirelessly to a variety of screens at home, regardless of where you bought them. Imagine you're playing Cyberpunk 2077 on your PC display, but you want to move over to the living room couch and play on a big TV. The idea is that you'd be able to tap a button in an app, and the game would wirelessly swap displays, letting you hog the TV all to yourself or have your game squeeze next to another in a split-view mode. Alienware is working to make it possible to stream up to four games at once. Alienware demoed Nyx to The Verge with repurposed Concept UFO controllers that we last saw at CES 2020 attached to a Switch-like tablet. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23121514/cfaulkner_141231_4944_0003.jpg) Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge In the conceptual phase, Nyx requires a machine that's powerful enough to run multiple games at once, with networking chops to handle distributing low-latency streams. It's unclear whether Alienware intends to release its own hardware, when that might be, how much it might cost, and whether what Nyx aims to do will be a paid service. There are clearly a lot of questions for which Alienware needs to provide answers. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23121516/cfaulkner_141231_4944_0005.jpg) Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge But compared to the likes of Google Stadia and Amazon Luna, Concept Nyx seems built to make accessing and playing your already-owned PC games even easier, with a similar level of device compatibility and, perhaps, fewer compromises in terms of visual quality. In a way, it's remarkably similar to what Valve is already doing with its Remote Play Anywhere feature — for free, to boot. Though, where Nyx intends to differentiate itself is with handling more streams at once and pulling in games from multiple platforms. It was encouraging that Alienware was actually able to pull off the Nyx demo for us successfully, swapping between multiple displays with just a few seconds in between the pass-off from screen to screen. But we'll need to try it at home and not in a controlled environment to see if it's ready for the real world. |
| Samsung’s new 2022 TVs bring Nvidia GeForce Now and Google Stadia gaming Posted: 02 Jan 2022 06:00 PM PST  Samsung is revealing a new lineup of smart TVs at CES 2022 today, including features as exotic as radio-wave powered remote controls and support for NFTs — and they also happen to be the first Samsung sets in a while to let you play triple-A video games from the cloud instead of just your Xbox, PlayStation or PC. After an vague tease in October, Samsung is now confirming that "select" 2022 models will explicitly offer access to Nvidia's GeForce Now, Google Stadia, and the Utomik cloud gaming service as part of a new "Samsung Gaming Hub," a user interface which Samsung's intending to expand to additional services as well. The Samsung Gaming Hub isn't just for cloud gaming, either. Intriguingly, the company says that your HDMI-connected video game consoles will be part of it as well — complete with passthrough controller inputs. That means you might be able to play cloud games and console games with the same controller, instead of having to maintain separate controllers or pair back and forth, with both PlayStation and Xbox controllers supported at launch. It's also promising "AI Gaming technology" that will create curated game recommendations on your TV's home screen, which... okay, sure. It's interesting to see TV manufacturers embrace cloud gaming again, after a bit of a lapse. While LG and Samsung both competed for the rights to stream games from Gaikai and OnLive back in 2012, and some Samsung TVs offered Sony's PlayStation Now between 2015 and 2017, it's only this winter that LG and Samsung are back in the game with Nvidia and Google's services. It's not clear whether Samsung's TVs will offer the best picture and audio quality for cloud gaming quite yet, as the company was unable to say whether either GeForce Now or Google Stadia would offer 4K streaming. "We are working with partners to bring their best levels of service to our platform," reads part of a statement from Samsung gaming product director Mike Lucero to The Verge. "We will be announcing details as we get closer to launch." If you've got an earlier Samsung Smart TV, there's also no telling whether you'll get access to any of these features. "We are starting with our 2022 models and are working to make the Gaming Hub available to even more Samsung customers," writes Lucero. It's interesting to me that Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming, aka xCloud, isn't part of this launch. Microsoft and Samsung prominently partnered on cloud gaming in February 2020, and we got xCloud on a smart fridge and some Samsung Android phones, but the Xbox app for smart TVs that Phil Spencer told us about in November 2020 hasn't materialized yet. It only got a brief mention last June ahead of — instead of during — the E3 2021 video game expo. Samsung Smart TVs have offered a Steam Link app for a while, but Lucero tells The Verge it won't be part of this Gaming Hub. Correction, 9:37 PM ET: Samsung says that GeForce Now, Stadia and Utomik will be offered via the hub, but will not come preinstalled on the TVs as we initially implied. Also, Samsung adds that Xbox and PlayStation controllers will be among those supported for passthrough. |
| YouTuber figured out Asus Z690 Hero motherboards melted down due to backward capacitor Posted: 02 Jan 2022 03:59 PM PST  A YouTuber who goes by the name of Buildzoid on the Actually Hardware Overlocking channel has figured out that a backward capacitor on the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard is causing it to melt down, according to a report by Tom's Hardware. Asus has since acknowledged the issue in a post on its site and plans on issuing replacements to customers with affected motherboards. Problems with the Z690 Hero motherboard started turning up on the Asus support forum, as well as on Reddit, and the issues experienced by users are pretty much identical. As noted by Tom's Hardware, users reported that their motherboards started smoking in the same spot: the two MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) next to the DIMM slots and the Q-code reader. In a video on his channel, Buildzoid diagnoses the issue using only the pictures posted to support forums and on Reddit, attributing the Z690 Hero's failure to the backward capacitor installed next to the MOSFETs, not the MOSFETs themselves. Buildzoid looks closely at the images of the motherboard, pointing out that the text on the capacitor is actually upside down, a potential sign that it's installed incorrectly. As Tom's Hardware mentions, a reversed capacitor results in reversed polarity, causing the MOSFETs to malfunction and burn up. After news about the issue started gaining traction, Asus confirmed that Buildzoid's diagnosis is, in fact, correct. "In our ongoing investigation, we have preliminarily identified a potential reversed memory capacitor issue in the production process from one of the production lines that may cause debug error code 53, no post, or motherboard components damage," Asus announced. "The issue potentially affects units manufactured in 2021 with the part number 90MB18E0-MVAAY0 and serial number starting with MA, MB, or MC." The company says you can find your Z690 Hero's serial number and part number on the side of your motherboard's packaging, as well as on the sticker that's placed on the top or bottom of the motherboard itself. In a separate post on Asus' Facebook page, the company added a link to a tool that checks whether your Z690 Hero is affected by the issue based on its serial number. "Going forward, we are continuing our thorough inspection with our suppliers and customers to identify all possible affected ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboards in the market and will be working with relevant government agencies on a replacement program," Asus states. |
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