We no longer present NVIDIA's flagship service, Geforce Now. Launched 4 years ago, this Cloud Gaming platform allows you to play (almost) its entire library of PC games on any device, as long as you have at least a recent web browser.
OFFERS FROM GEFORCE NOW
Geforce Now is a cloud gaming service allowing users to play their PC games from several libraries such as Steam, Ubiconnect, Epic Games or Xbox on various devices via streaming. In other words, you will play on a server hosted by Nvidia which will be responsible for transmitting the image to your PC.
Advantage number 1: no need to have a monster of power to play titles like Starfield, since it is the NVIDIA Geforce Now platform which takes care of the rendering, and your PC ultimately only displays a streamed video, as if you were playing a video on YouTube.
I have already spoken to you in a first video from the use I had of NVIDIA's Geforce Now service, when it was launched 4 years ago, when my internet connection was limited to ADSL and 4G. I was amazed by the quality, but especially by the proactivity despite my low flow. When you press the button on the pad, the information goes to the Nvidia servers which instantly send you the image of the game, in a fraction of a second.
A few months after this first video, I had you talked about the service again, presenting it as a great alternative to the GPU shortage during the COVID period.
Registration for the service is free, and allows you to link your different accounts and see the list of compatible games, because, yes, not everything is available. For example, out of my Steam library of nearly 1000 games, Geforce Now only supports 278, at the time of writing these few lines. Fortunately, every week, this list is growing greatly, and most big titles are supported upon release.
The service is available via 3 offers : the first, free, allows you to test the service over a one-hour gaming session. When launched, you are on a waiting list which lasts around 15 minutes. The 2e offer, paying around ten euros per month, gives you priority access, to play over a session of 6 hours maximum, in 1080p 60fps. Finally, the 3e offer, at almost 22 euros per month, leaves you with the 4080 RTX capable of streaming 8 hours of gaming in 4K, and at 120 fps maximum.
To finish on the technique, Geforce Now is used with dedicated software that you install on your PC, or directly via your Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browser. Which makes the service accessible from almost anywhere.
FIBER: THE FRIEND CLOUD GAMING
In order to take full advantage of Geforce Now in 2024, it is essential to have a good internet connection: Fiber is essential to make maximum use of the service's potential.
A quick aside, concerning Starlink users. I was a customer of the service for 6 months, but the latency compared to fiber does not make it an ideal connection for using Geforce Now on fast action games.
Come on, let's move on to the first test, I was impatient to see if my old Xbox One could come back to the forefront... And unfortunately it's not won.
THE XBOX ONE AND GEFORCE NOW IN 2024
I expected a lot from this console released in 2013, which today only serves me to watch my series on VOD on the bedroom screen. If the One can stream Xbox Series games via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, it is also “possible” to launch Geforce Now via the integrated Microsoft Edge browser.
Small problem, the Xbox One continues monthly updates, and we can feel that the system is becoming more and more sluggish. Menu navigation is becoming less and less responsive. I can even give you a date, found on the dedicated forum : September 2023, after the monthly Xbox One update, Geforce Now has obviously ceased to be stable.
I took the test anyway. I'll skip the configuration phase for you, which is quite simple since you just have to launch Microsoft Edge, go to play.geforcenow.com, to log in to your account to find your library. Chic, I was going to be able to play Starfield PC at Ultra 60 fps on Xbox One?
Lost. If the display is good, the latency between a command and the character's reaction is around 2 seconds in the best case. By lowering the resolution and bitrate to minimum, it's barely better. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the Xbox One's CPU/GPU usage statistics to fully identify the problem. But it is clear that the service can no longer be used on this platform.
Since we're talking about games consoles, I wanted to test on the PS5... but I forgot that Sony no longer provided a browser, so... there you go...
THE STEAM DECK AND GEFORCE NOW: FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE
Spoiler: The Steam Deck is one of the platforms that benefits the most from the NVIDIA GEFORCE NOW service. I will explain my tests to you. First in Docked mode, connected to a 4K TV screen, I wanted to take advantage of GEFORCE NOW with an Xbox One controller connected via USB. This was possible, but too complicated to be a viable solution.
We first had to switch to Steam OS Desktop mode to launch a Chrome browser. From there, I plugged in a wireless keyboard/mouse to access the GEFORCE NOW site and launch my games. In keyboard/mouse, nothing to say, the service is stable, fluid, fast, ultra-responsive, and transforms the Valve console into a war machine, light years away from the competitors Rog Ally or Lenovo Legion Go. Impossible, however, to play the pad. It's not recognized by Google Chrome, and even after a few lines of commands, I was only able to get partial, wobbly support for the controller.
Reverse, I decide to try using it without the dock, in portable mode. So I add Google Chrome as a Steam game shortcut so that I can launch it directly in Big Picture mode, the default mode of the Steam Deck. I make a minor tweak to tell Chrome to use the Steam Deck's built-in pad and…. that works !
I manage to launch Geforce Now on a browser, in mobile mode. It's fire! Starfield in Ultra, Banishers with Ray Tracing, Assassins Creed Valhalla at constant 60 fps in full quality… The power is there, and the Steam Deck takes it easy. Because yes, he does nothing other than display a video, which propels the autonomy to more than 5 hours ! What could be better ? A native app made by NVIDIA? After all, it would make sense, especially since we are talking about more than 3 million Steam Decks sold at the start of 2024. So a native client under Steam OS would avoid playing geek in a Linux environment to achieve run the service.
In any case, the use of Geforce Now on these mobile platforms, provided of course that you are at home with good wifi coverage, is validated!
AN OLD PC LISTING?
The Steam Deck is very nice, but it's fairly recent hardware, it was interesting to see what it looks like on a PC... not at all made for gaming. I asked my other half to lend me his Office PC, purchased in 2018: an Acer Aspire 3 “powered” by an aging AMD A9-9425 APU, 4 GB of RAM and a Full HD screen. I tried to run Farming Simulator 17 on it, and... it was complicated. This is the kind of PC that you find for around 100 euros on second-hand sales sites.
For the test, I went with the simplest one. I launched Google Chrome, entered my credentials on the Geforce Now site. I then launched a Starfield, in Ultra Mega Giga HD 3000 fps mode and blew my retinas on a secretary's PC. The reactivity ? Tit for tat! The game runs like on my Razer blade 16, yet equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 4090! With one difference… the electricity consumption at the socket.
ON AN ANDROID TV?
I was recently able to acquire a 4K TV running Android. And that’s good, there is a native app, developed by NVIDIA, for Geforce Now. So I decide, after pairing my Xbox pad via Bluetooth, to install the program to test the service. What can I say… It’s devilish! Just the screen. No PC. No console. Just the Geforce Now and my game library, accessible in seconds. In Full HD, 60 FPS, the service is perfectly fluid and responsive, just like on PC.
ON THE RAZER BLADE 16. FOR FUN…
Is there a real point in investing in a Geforce Now plan when you have a PC like the RAZER BLADE 16, equipped with an RTX 4090 and a powerful Intel Core i9? Certainly not. All the games already run without flinching with the settings at max. But I still wanted to test NVIDIA's streaming service on my Alienware 38-inch Ultra Wide display to see if I could sense the difference between a game running natively on the Razer Blade 16 and one streamed via the Geforce Now PC app.
Note that the Razer Blade 16 is the only hardware tested here to be equipped with an NVIDIA chip. Therefore, the Geforce Now application offers me additional settings such as AI-enhanced upscaling, but also HDR and NVIDIA Reflex since my screen is compatible.
This will perhaps surprise you, but, in all objectivity, and it is not for lack of spending my days playing, in game, I cannot perceive any differences, it is astonishing to arrive at this level of performance, both in terms of image quality/fluidity and control responsiveness.
I still remind you of the testing conditions, a fiber internet connection, at Sosh for my part, with an up and down speed of 300 MBPS, in Wifi 6 5Ghz.
To conclude, only positive things about this service. The price may seem high. But if we look at the price of a PC configuration equipped with an RTX 4080, we easily arrive at 2400 euros. Which corresponds to approximately 9 years of Ultimate access to Geforce Now, which is also upgradeable. The only constraint is perhaps the limited library of games, but I invite you to go to the Nvidia website to find the list of 1800 games currently compatible. A list that grows every week.
