First play session with GeForce Now – High-end gaming on low-end hardware
For years we have been hearing about the great promise of cloud gaming. The idea that in the future you will no longer need an expensive console or gaming PC and that a fast internet connection is sufficient was first put forward in 2009 by the company OnLive, which introduced a small set-top box that allowed users to stream games over the internet. OnLive has since gone bankrupt, but several companies have also jumped into the technology, including Nvidia and Valve, both of which offer software that lets you stream games from one PC to another screen over your local network at home.
Nvidia isn’t limited to indoor streaming. Since 2013, the company has been working on GeForce Now, a cloud streaming service where games actually run in Nvidia data centers hundreds of miles away. Until now, GeForce Now had two major limitations: it only ran on Nvidia’s own Shield TV media player and really new games were nowhere to be found.
Both points will be addressed later this year: it will then be possible to run GeForce Now on a PC or Mac and – much more importantly – users will be able to install games on Nvidia’s cloud servers themselves. You are then no longer dependent on Nvidia’s offer and do not have to pay a monthly subscription. Do you only want to play one top title per year? You can.
Nvidia works together with all major well-known digital content platforms, including Steam, Battle.net, Origin, Uplay and GOG. In addition, some free-to-play games, such as World of Tanks, are also supported. So the idea is that you as a user buy the game – just like you would for a local installation – and then store it on the Nvidia servers. Then you install the application on a PC or Mac and you can play anywhere you have an internet connection. In addition, you can of course also run it at home, after all, you own the game.
This is of course not very interesting for die-hard PC gamers and Nvidia hopes to reach precisely those people who would like to play PC games, but do not have the money for a PC with a fast CPU and powerful video card. In addition, this allows Mac users to play all games made for Windows on their system.
Amazingly good
The idea sounds promising, but how well does it work in practice? During CES we were able to get acquainted with the technology for the first time at the Nvidia stand, although it was not a completely realistic setup. At a trade show like CES, the internet is so volatile and slow that Nvidia didn’t dare actually stream from a data center miles away, so they ran a “local cloud.” It had Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3 installed, which we were able to play on a Macbook Air, iMac, Dell XPS 13 and all-in-one from HP.
As a player you hardly notice that the game is running externally; the only thing that betrays that it concerns streaming is that the icon on your desktop to start the game is provided with a small Nvidia logo. Also during gameplay there was little to indicate that all the calculations were done on another machine. In scenes with lots of detail and fast movement, like an avalanche cutscene in Tomb Raider, we did see some slight compression artifacts up close, but honestly, we expected worse.
We also liked the input lag, although this will ultimately depend entirely on the speed of your internet connection and the distance to the Nvidia data center. In addition, Nvidia had selected games that lend themselves well to it; both The Witcher and Tomb Raider are relatively “slow” and don’t require the fast-paced kind of input you’d need in a fighting or racing game.
Nvidia ultimately expects a total latency, so from the moment you give input as a player until the frame is back on your screen, of a maximum of 100ms. That is too high for avid gamers, but we can well imagine that the group of gamers that Nvidia wants to reach with this will be able to handle it just fine. Our experience is that your brain unconsciously quickly adapts to input lag and starts to compensate for this. Where the boundary lies between acceptable and unacceptable latency will ultimately differ per person.
Not cheap
The first beta period will start in the United States at the end of March, giving gamers the choice of two different options: gaming at the equivalent of a GeForce GTX 1060 or gaming at the GTX 1080 level. If you choose the latter, you can stream up to 1080p with 60fps. At the moment there are few games where a GTX1080 does not reach 60fps at that resolution, so Nvidia seems to have enough processing power for the time being. The power of the computing centers will grow with the hardware in PCs, so when Nvidia comes out with a successor to the GTX1080, it will also be used for GeForce Now.
Pricing for the service isn’t set in stone yet, but Nvidia is assuming $25 for the beta period for 20 hours of gaming at the GTX1060 level or 10 hours of gaming at the GTX1080 level. For the large user, it quickly adds up to the costs, but for those who only play a few games per year, it is fine. Do the math: suppose you play three top titles a year and spend about twenty hours each on those games. Per game you will then roughly reach 110 euros for purchase and play, or 330 euros in total. However, you save on the purchase of a gaming PC, or at least a high-end video card such as a GTX1080 that starts at more than 600 euros at the time of writing.
On paper, Nvidia has an interesting service with GeForce Now that, based on what we were able to test at CES, offers a very solid gaming experience. We will keep a close eye on developments and are curious whether Nvidia will succeed in making the great promise of game streaming finally become a reality.