GeForce NOW

[Harrison]

I looked at this when it first appeared and even had a quick test of the beta before its full release, but at the time it was buggy and not that impressive. I also think I wasn't on fibre at the time so my connection and latency were probably near the limit, which wouldn't of helped the experience.

GeForce Now is a very interesting idea. To allow you to play the games you own on remote high end hardware, so you don't need to own that hardware yourself. For anyone unable to afford a £3k+ setup it's a very enticing idea. And it runs on pretty much any hardware including fairly basic PCs, Macs, Tablets and Smartphones.

But as JT said, is it really that relevant now?

Before I get into other services I just had a thought regarding Kin's initial comment about ping rate and latency in games. But with GeForce Now the game is running on remote hardware, so the ping rate and latency for the game communication with a multiplayer server will be at the server end, not the gamer's dummy terminal hardware. The connection between the GeForce Now hardware and the gamer is just streaming a video feed and receiving back gamer inputs. So if you are on fibre with a ping rate before 10ms will this actually matter? My Fibre has a ping rate of 2-5ms, do near to nothing.

I'm tempted to test a free trial just to see how well it works these days.

But back to alternative game streaming services.

GeForce is unique in not actually being a streaming library or store. You have to own the games in an existing library such as Steam to be able to play them through this service.

By contrast Xbox Gamepass Ultimate Cloud Gaming provides the games as part of their gamepass library. Not all games in the library support cloud gaming, but it totals 382 cloud supported games based on what I just looked up. That is quite impressive considering the price of the subscription. I have been using it for years and didn't realise there were that many. I never think it feels like there are that many so I will have to double check that.

And Playstation Gamepass Premium also provides cloud gaming, but this is only on real hardware (PS4/5) and PC. Unlike Gamepass you cannot currently stream Playstation cloud games via smartphone or other devices, which makes it a bit more limiting compared to Gamepass where you can stream a cloud game on pretty much any device. I've run them on Smaetphones, tablets, Steam Deck and PC.

You also had Stadia until recently. I tested that out a few times during its lifetime and it ran fine, but I could instantly see why it failed. It didn't have a business model that could work or compete with the others. You subscribe to Gamepass or PS Plus Extra and you get an instant games library of 100s of games, all full and included in your subscription for as long as you subscribed. With Stadia you had to subscribe just the same, but for that you only got a few games included each month, like the lowest tiers of the other services here. But they tried to model it like you were subscribing to a virtual cloud console and had to then buy most games to run on it.

So where does that leave GeForce Now?

With both Gamepass and PS Plus cloud services you are limited to the resolution and framerate it streams at. This is normally 720p or HD, and 30 to 60 fps. As you know me, this is prefectly fine for most games. But it's not any good for fast action or twitch reaction gaming.

As I've mentioned before when testing Gamepass Cloud gaming, the framerate and resolution look ok but struggle in fast paced games. The issue with Gamepass is still latency in faster paced games. If you load something like Forza Horizon and start a game you initially think it looks great and is very respinsive, but as soon as all the cars launch off the line and you have them all on screen at once you start to feel the cloud server latency kick in. This isn't a connection or ping rate issue. This is the cloud server. It starts to have trouble keeping up. You start seeing areas of the graphics degrade and pixilate, and some anti aliasing that makes it look like the graphics have smeared. And in every racing game I've tested on Gamepass cloud gaming the race reaches a point where the cloud server can't keep delivering the game and it just freezes for a few seconds or the screen goes blank. Then it suddenly updates and catches up with you crashed into a wall. Not fit for purpose.

But you play other styles of games and you get zero issues at all and I can say you would be hard pressed to know it's not running locally. I've been playing the new RPG, Sea of Stars, in Gamepass cloud on my SteamDeck and its no different to having it installed locally.

As for PS Plus Premium cloud, I have to say that I've never suffered the same issues as Gamepass. I've been using this a very long time since it as PS Now and never had any latency issues or stopped game sessions. No pixelation or degradation of graphics. The games just work as intended. But a lot of Playstation cloud gaming is designed out of necessity. On the PS4 and 5 you can't run PS3 or PS2 games natively so all of them in the library run via remote cloud server, and it's a great solution. They only run in 720p, but the originals were that or lower so not a problem.

So where does that leave GeForce Now? If it can deliver what it promises. The highest subscription saying 4080 level graphics at 4K, and 120fps, then it is the only streaming service that can offer high end, high resolution gaming. But without testing that claim I can't say.

It's only stumbling block is the need to already own the games. And there are not really that many games supported. I seem to remember 96 being quoted. So you are limited in what you can play. But if you want to experience them as if running on highend hardware, but you don't have it, then it's an option to consider.