tl;dr: After years in game development, Nicolas Garilhe launched the Silkroad Project to reclaim creative independence. His old hardware forced compromises—choosing between fidelity and workflow. Upgrading to a Dell Precision workstation with NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada unlocked parallel workflows, instant renders, and uninterrupted creative flow. The result? A proof of concept for artistic freedom, blending Central Asian culture with dynamic gameplay.
Nicolas Garilhe spent 15 years building video games for others. He was employee #13 at Invoke Studio, and watched the company grow to over 200 people. But something changed as his career progressed. The creative independence he’d always imagined slipped further away.
He began to reclaim his creativity through independent game development with the Silkroad Project. The game is loosely inspired by 7th-century Central Asian culture. It blends Dynasty Warriors-style combat with meditative guest house management.
These days, Garilhe uses the Silkroad project to test his creative limits. However, his original desktop often forced compromises. He could open Houdini to simulate terrains, ZBrush to sculpt characters, or run Unreal Engine, but never at the same time. “In Unreal Engine, I had to reduce the graphics fidelity to make it run smoothly. I’d ask myself, do I want to work on graphics fidelity or do I want a smooth workflow?”
This friction interrupted his creative flow. “I was limiting myself because I wasn’t going to open a second app. I couldn’t bother to tweak details because it was too much hassle.”
An upgrade for the journey
Dell’s collaboration with Epic Games’ Indie Initiative provided Garilhe with a Dell Precision powered by NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada with 48GB of VRAM. The upgrade quadrupled his rendering capacity from 12GB to 48GB.
Being able to have Unreal Engine, Houdini, ZBrush, and Blender open at the same time was game-changing. Texture baking used to take hours. Now jobs finish in less than a minute. Houdini simulations render ecosystems with erosion and other effects in 4K texture almost instantaneously. “I don’t have to think about what or when to render, anymore,” Garilhe said, “The flexibility I have with my upgraded system is great because it allows me to work how I love to work.”
The flow-state discovery
The most surprising upgrade was human; Garilhe rediscovered uninterrupted creative flow, something he hadn’t experienced since his early development days.
He found himself diving deep into creative work without the constant mental overhead of managing system limitations. “Every time I hit a hindrance or something stopped my flow, I’d lose creative energy.”
Prior frustrations that accumulated throughout development sessions, including forced software closures, render delays, and constant resource management vanished. In their place, he gained the ability to lose track of time in the best possible way. “It happens a lot that I have to watch the hour because it’s very late and I didn’t realize because I’m in this flow.”
The flexibility changed how he approached his work. Before, he limited himself—opening another application was a hassle, and tweaking details meant waiting. Now those barriers didn’t exist. “I don’t think I’m going faster. I think I’m going further with this kind of material because I don’t have this fear of if I want to tweak this, it’s going to be a pain and it’s going to take me time.”
Proof of concept for creative independence
“The Silkroad project is not just a commercial project. It tests my creative limits.” The project has evolved beyond a game—it’s become proof of concept for creative independence.
Central Asia’s cultural richness feeds Garilhe’s imagination in ways that have surprised him. “I have a fascination for Central Asia.” The game explores how regions and time periods influence people, while mixing intense Dynasty Warriors-style action with peaceful, reflective moments of guest house management.
Central Asia’s cultural richness feeds Garilhe’s imagination in unexpected ways. The game explores how regions and time periods influence people, mixing intense combat with peaceful moments of guest house management. Players meet travelers from across an imaginary world and hear stories from different cultures and histories.
For someone who describes himself as an artist that enjoys tweaking technical things, the hardware validates his approach to creative independence. “I’m having fun and am better able to express myself.”
Garilhe’s journey from corporate constraint to creative liberation shows what’s possible when the right tools meet genuine artistic vision.
If you’re interested in following Nicolas Garilhe’s development progress, click here. To learn more about how Dell workstations powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO GPUs are empowering creative professionals, learn more.
