My experience with Geforce Now so far

[EazeeOne23]

Hi all,

So yesterday I opted to join the impressive offering from Nvidia. I'm saying "Impressive" because compared to Google Stadia it is a very good value proposition.

As of now you get the option to trial out the paid membership "Founders" for three months before committing to a monthly subscription of a mere £4.99pm. Not to mention the fact that you can bring in your own library (around 500 games supported).

I only tried out two games: Assassin's Creed Oddysey and Witcher 3.

When you turn on the application and choose your game you're greeted with a log on screen for the respective platform that the game is based on. What's frustrating with this is I have all of my passwords stored using Last Pass. Copying my long password won't do any good because for some reason the application won't recognise what's in my clipboard...I had manually type it in.

Anyway, Assassin's Creed...I played everything at ultra...refresh rate was capped at 60. A shame since I have a 144hz monitor. The game ran well, I didn't notice in latency and controls were responsive. The FPS was mostly stable but there was some stuttering but not much. Sadly, there was noticible image compression. It was too much for me I'm afraid and it did ruin the experience for me.

Now...Witcher 3. When you add this game to your library it opens up steam. Essentially it's the same UI. You have to install Witcher 3 to the machine. I was getting speeds 615mbps so it only took 5 mins to download and install.

I loaded up save and I was experiencing the same problem...image compression. Also I realized I wouldn't be able install any mods. And for me that was a deal breaker.

One thing to note, when I logged off the app and logged back in again I was required to install Witcher 3 again. Not sure if that is an intended function but it's fine for me since the download speeds of application are impressive. Assassin's creed oddysey however was already preloaded in the application.

To conclude, this is still impressive. It's amazing the technology is here and playable. Sadly, I think it's a generation too early to be viable for me. Unless the image compression issue is resolved, cloud gaming isn't for me.

EazeeOne23

 

[Zoid]

Thanks for sharing this write-up! Cloud gaming has such interesting potential.

I don't see cloud gaming as a service that PC enthusiasts are going to abandon their gaming PCs for, at least not until we reach a point that image compression and latency are reduced to the point of being non-issues. I think cloud gaming services that market themselves as gaming PC "replacements" are missing the mark. Where cloud gaming can be really, really cool is as a complement to someone's existing gaming PC, or as an entry point for someone who is unable to afford a beefy rig.

I don't really care if the feed is compressed if it means I can play AAA games on my Intel HD laptop in an airport, and latency isn't even much of an issue if I'm playing a turn-based strategy game like XCOM or Civ. I think it's also a super appealing concept for people in countries where the price of PC hardware is super inflated.

Also...

You have to install Witcher 3 to the machine. I was getting speeds 615mbps so it only took 5 mins to download and install.

What. I don't even think I could download and install Witcher 3 in 5 HOURS.

 

[Rensje]

Interesting read! I'm one of the weirdos that bought an Nvidia Shield years ago, thinking it would be great to stream video games from my PC over the network to my TV in the living room. I found the experience to be unsatisfying at best, and that was when it worked. Half the time, it wouldn't work at all. I have a smart TV so I don't use any of the apps, nor do I really care for Google Assistant or other smart features, so the thing's mostly been collecting dust.

With the launch of GeForce Now, it might actually be useful again! I love the fact that the service lets you use your own game libraries as long as the game you are trying to play is supported. The fact that it's free to use for up to an hour at a time is also a big plus. I might actually consider setting up my Shield again and trying that on the telly in the living room. Playing some casual XCOM 2 on my LG C9 OLED from the comfort of my couch sounds appealing, and I could probably deal with the compression artifacts when I'm sitting 3 meters from the screen.

Like @Zoid said, if it works well (and it better, we have 1Gbps up/down */flex*) this would be the perfect complement to my existing gaming setup. Action adventure games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Dark Souls, pretty much anything I can play with a controller, seems like a great fit.

It's hilarious that this is coming out now, just when I bought a TV that supports Gsync late last year with the intention of building a small gaming HTPC for the living room to take full advantage of it. Although the streaming service won't have Gsync support, if it can maintain a rock solid 60fps and supports HDR I'd be a happy camper.

 

[Frindis]

I mainly use my PC for my computer games at home and just thinking of playing games on a small screen is not exactly something I dream about. For the younger generation, I am sure this would be more interesting as kids/young adults nowadays seem to have at least three different screens to play games on in their homes. I have my eyes on GoG Galaxy 2.0 instead, hoping it will be good for managing my games from different libraries.

 

[Zloth]

Regarding passwords: how long of a password do they let you make? If you can make them quite long, I would recommend making a pass PHRASE that you can actually remember. Something like "I put a review of this on PC Gamer forums!" would be harder to brute force crack and you could remember it so it won't be just sitting there in your clipboard for however long.

What kind of bandwidth have you got, @EazeeOne23? That's a pretty critical part of this kind of system!

Like Zoid said, these things aren't going to replace PC enthusiasts' machines any time at all soon - especially as VR grows, requiring even more bandwidth. The super-fast installs done remotely could make these things into great places to try out game demonstrations, though. OnLive would let you play the first 30 minutes of any game for free, for instance.

For everyone else, though, this technology could be really great - assuming they have good bandwidth and no caps. The hardware needed is cheap, there's barely any upkeep needed, no worries about whether the game is compatible or not, and, unlike consoles, new technology can show up when it's ready instead of waiting 5+ years for the next console generation.

I do find it really weird that this one has you install games - even with high bandwidth. I would have assumed you would just get connected to a virtual server that already has the game installed so the only thing moving around would be your save game file(s). Maybe they are keeping installs by user? Perhaps so that mods can be done to games sometime in the future? If only we had some intrepid reporter handy that could see if NVIDIA has any comment!

 

[Alm]

I have tried it too and had similar conclusions. I have the feeling that with game streaming, if they can improve the graphical quality and perfect the latency (I tried Quake 2 RTX and there was a little latency on my connection), it will make traditional PC gaming more of a niche hobby. There's a lot of money to be made with this technology and I can see it being the new spotify / netflix.

 

[EazeeOne23]

Regarding passwords: how long of a password do they let you make? If you can make them quite long, I would recommend making a pass PHRASE that you can actually remember. Something like "I put a review of this on PC Gamer forums!" would be harder to brute force crack and you could remember it so it won't be just sitting there in your clipboard for however long.

What kind of bandwidth have you got, @EazeeOne23? That's a pretty critical part of this kind of system!

Like Zoid said, these things aren't going to replace PC enthusiasts' machines any time at all soon - especially as VR grows, requiring even more bandwidth. The super-fast installs done remotely could make these things into great places to try out game demonstrations, though. OnLive would let you play the first 30 minutes of any game for free, for instance.

For everyone else, though, this technology could be really great - assuming they have good bandwidth and no caps. The hardware needed is cheap, there's barely any upkeep needed, no worries about whether the game is compatible or not, and, unlike consoles, new technology can show up when it's ready instead of waiting 5+ years for the next console generation.

I do find it really weird that this one has you install games - even with high bandwidth. I would have assumed you would just get connected to a virtual server that already has the game installed so the only thing moving around would be your save game file(s). Maybe they are keeping installs by user? Perhaps so that mods can be done to games sometime in the future? If only we had some intrepid reporter handy that could see if NVIDIA has any comment!

I think passwords can be about 25 characters. Good shout about the passphrase I should do that.

My ISP is Virgin broadband and it's a 200mb package but usually I get around 150 from my room because I have to use a Power line adaptor

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Geforce Now seems great if youre the kind of person that moves around a lot, but as someone who spends the vast majority of my gaming time at my PC like @Frindis , GamePass seems like a much better option then either Stadia or Geforce Now.

I much prefer to be able to try a lot of games at no cost I would otherwise have ignored or bought cheap in a sale then to still have to straight up buy them in order to stream them.

I wonder if theres room for both types of service, with Nvidia competing more directly with Google for that niche.

 

[Zloth]

Good Stuff about Thin Client Cloud Gaming

• Super-low entry fee. All you need is a network connection, something to decode/display the A/V feed, and some controllers. Maybe $100-$150 if you've already got a TV to display it on.
• It Just Works. No more starting your game, getting a black screen, and wondering why. No more questions about whether your PC can handle the game, either.
• No piracy and no used game sales. If you want to play, you're going to pay. Hopefully a good portion of that cash will go back into game development. (This point goes in the next section for Gamestop.) This will only work if the game i
• Mobility - though you kind of get that with save games sitting on the cloud servers. This would work even better as you could keep playing on a cheap'o laptop.
• Developers will know exactly what sort of box they are developing for, much like consoles. Unlike consoles, though, they can actually say what they need right down to the driver versions!

Not Good Stuff

• No mods. They might be able to figure out some way to include really popular mods but they would have to be ones that don't infringe on other people's IPs so you can forget about playing Cyberpunk as The Hulk.
• Latency. The speed of light is only so fast. I think you can forget about e-sports on these platforms.
• ISP dependent. Got slow network speeds? Data caps? You're doomed.
• VR needs more resolution and framerate than these things can handle. Even if you do have great bandwidth on your own ISP, I don't think the cloud's data centers are going to be able to dish out that many packets to many customers at once.

Errrrr?

• Configuration freedom should be about the same, I would think. Though I wonder if they might charge you more for the really GPU/CPU intensive stuff? (Or, conversely, will they give you a discount if you turn off the intensive stuff?)
• Game price. We should have gotten a nice discount when publishers didn't have to print up boxes and CDs then ship them all over the planet. That didn't really happen. Will this style be cheaper?

 

[CParsons]

I've used GeForce NOW with my NVIDIA Shield (2019) and always had one issue or another with it, be it random glitches or latency despite having a great 1Gbps pipe. Under their beta, the issues I experienced were 'fine' but I can't imagine moving to their $4.99/mnth plan.