During its keynote presentation at Computex 2024, Nvidia unveiled a new type of AI assistant to help gamers perform their best. Project G-Assist is the first step toward AI assistants offering players help with strategies and workflows as games become more challenging and time-consuming.
With Project G-Assist and a compatible GPU, gamers can access a large language model (LLM) linked to a game knowledge database as they play a supported game. Using voice prompts or text inputs, players can query the AI assistant for advice on how to proceed in a game.
While Project G-Assist can’t take over playing for a gamer, as the 2017 April Fool’s prank video demonstrated, it does offer a wealth of information at gamers’ fingertips.
Nvidia pointed out that games have grown so complex that a relatively high percentage of players reported being reluctant to pick up a new game. Even though they were interested in the game, the learning curve and time investment required to enjoy the new titles weren’t perceived as worth the entertainment value.
“PC games offer vast universes to explore and intricate mechanics to master, which are challenging and time-consuming feats even for the most dedicated gamers,” the company said in a statement.
To demo the technology, Nvidia partnered with Studio Wildcard, makers of Ark: Survival Ascended. Project G-Assist showed itself capable of answering questions about creatures, crafting items, lore, difficult bosses, and more. In one example, a player asked Project G-Assist what the best early weapon was in the game.
The AI assistant recommended a spear and provided details about how to craft the weapon. It also offered information about how much damage the weapon could inflict, its weaknesses, and more.
Furthermore, Project G-Assist is context-aware of what’s happening in the game. Using AI vision models, the assistant can take information from the game screen and use it to answer player questions about what’s happening and what they should do next.
Finally, Nvidia demonstrated that Project G-Assist can configure the player’s gaming system for optimal performance and efficiency. The tool offers insights into performance metrics and helps optimize graphics settings based on the player’s hardware. It can even apply a safe overclock to the GPU and “intelligently reduce power consumption” while still offering great performance.
When we might see games include Project G-Assist is unclear, as it’s a tool game developers will need to implement. It’s included within the upcoming RTX AI development kit, but it remains up to the game studios to build the feature into your favorite current or upcoming titles.
