8 ms·
Nvidia Geforce Now launches at $5 a month
- vorpalhex 7y agoThe 60 minute session limit on free accounts is interesting. One can imagine the future "Watch an add to get an extra 30 minutes!" Something about it feels creepy to me, but I can't place what.
- jsight 7y agoOTOH, it provides a nice way to try out the service without a commitment and without burning a "free trial".
- chrisseaton 7y agoSeems ok to me. I'd love to be able to play ten minutes of a game without any subscription and I'd be happy to watch an advert to do that.
- ArmandGrillet 7y ago... or this is just a good way to have people checking if the service works with their connection? It minimizes the barrier of entry and makes people sign up and install the app, it's a common way to do marketing (e.g. for freemium games).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- johnchristopher 7y agoYouTube already works like that.
- mathgeek 7y ago> The 60 minute session limit It's also a nice way to force yourself to play for only an hour and then go do something else, or at least consciously make the choice to play for longer than you intended.
- totaldude87 7y agoTheir game search is a joke, no filter, no sort, nothing..
- NikolaeVarius 7y agohttps://static.nvidiagrid.net/supported-public-game-list/gfnpc.json?JSON https://static.nvidiagrid.net/supported-public-game-list/gfn...
- totaldude87 7y agoSorry, i was talking about searching for a game inside the NVidia portal(currently its in final beta,... yet), post recent update to its beta, they went full on with a minimalist search only box..
- kaonashi 7y agoI read the page and I don't get what it is -- a store that tries to grandfather in your purchases at existing stores -- with a subscription?
- kodt 7y agoIt allows you to stream your games from Nvidia's servers instead of installing it locally. Mostly to play on underpowered devices such as a tablet, laptop, or streaming stick connected to your TV etc...
- kaonashi 7y agoah yea, it does say "stream" once in the entire page
- dx87 7y agoIt streams games to your devices. It's like Stadia, except you can also play what you already own, not just what has been released on the Stadia store.
- kenforthewin 7y agoI had to scroll far into the page to tell what this service even offers. > GeForce NOW instantly transforms nearly any laptop, desktop, Mac, SHIELD TV or Android mobile device into the PC gaming rig you’ve always dreamed of. Instantly play the most demanding PC games and seamlessly play across your devices.
- baybal2 7y agoIs this another streamed videogame service? I think these people don't learn. There were 10+ failed gaming SaaS companies on my memory.
- andrewmunsell 7y agoNVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft have more of a chance at success. They already have the necessary infrastructure or hardware to scale the business so that latency is acceptable, along with the software expertise to optimize the streaming. Sure, it still might not work out, but I still think they have a better chance than the previous SaaS entrants.
- henrikschroder 7y agoA problem that all the services face is that they can never, economically, output the same quality that a local gaming PC or console can deliver, which means hardcore gamers, who would want to spend money on gaming, will never be customers. Just look in this thread, the people who are impressed are casual gamers who have no interest in building a gaming PC, and I kinda doubt that group is a reliable customer base. And when the gaming press reviews these services, they crank up their magnifiers to figure out at exactly what quality level the games are actually being rendered at, and since that is always lower than what hardcore gamers can do themselves on their own hardware, the consensus is always "why bother?". Good enough quality simply isn't good enough for your prospective customers. And this is why these service are doomed to fail.
- Konnstann 7y agoThe vast majority of money spent on gaming comes from casual gamers. Most of this is mobile, but "hardcore" gamers are a much smaller market than casuals.
- henrikschroder 7y agoYes, but that's because the mobile games industry is churning out freemium, addictive, whale-catching monstrosities that are either glorified slot-machines or pay-to-pwn games. The people who put money into those kinds of games are not the target group for this either.
- AbraKdabra 7y agoI instantly suspect of any service/product that fails to tell what it is in the first view of the page, I mean, it's not hard, why should I scroll almost to the bottom of the page to read it?
- shmerl 7y agoWhat OS is it using for backend?
- byte1918 7y agoWindows of course.
- shmerl 7y agoWhy of course? Stadia is using Linux. Using Windows is a waste of license fees for such services.
- endorphone 7y agoI assume they chose Windows to support the widest array of games, and the most comprehensive and timely support for things like RTX. Stadia does use Linux, however Stadia has made an enormous number of missteps and seems very close to DOA so I'm not sure they're a good example of much.
- shmerl 7y agoI'd say using Windows is a misstep and DOA kind of choice for these things. For the reference, RTX shouldn't depend on the OS, since it's supported as a Vulkan extension.
- endorphone 7y agoIt's an abstract backend host for a remote desktop sort of thing -- there is nothing "Windows-esque" about the experience for the end-user -- so I imagine they could easily support alternatives as the need arises. But given that Windows currently supports 100% of the top PC games, where alternatives support a small fraction of that, it's something they certainly needed to support for now.
- shmerl 7y ago
- knicholes 7y agoI can't help but wonder if these gaming-as-a-service offerings are just a way to get more data to train ANNs.
- duxup 7y agoI like the idea that I can just try it for an hour.
- datashow 7y agoI have never used this kind of service before. What is the bandwidth required to stream a game play on a server? And how does the latency affect the experience?
- miohtama 7y agoOn Google Stadia, games run on a server on an edge node close to you to minimise the latency impact. Google can afford this, as they have server capacity around the world. But yes, latency does affect and may be a deal breaker for.some games.
- izacus 7y agoThere is some latency but I had no big issues playing strategy games and RPGs on my laptop. The best part is that your Steam saves sync and the laptop stays cool.
- tvb12 7y agoFrom the system requirements page: "GeForce NOW requires at least 15Mbps for 720p at 60fps and 25 Mbps for 1080p at 60fps." I'm pretty sure I could get that most days even though I live out in the boonies, but it looks like Linux isn't a supported platform and GOG isn't a supported storefront. That's kind of a bummer.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mrspeaker 7y agoHoly cow, I've never tried any of these types of services before but I'm blown away! I just signed up for the free version to give Fortnite a go. I've played it a tonne on mobile, but never PC because my 2012 Macbook Pro could only pump out about 5 FPS at the lowest graphics settings. 5 minutes of setup and I'm playing on amazing-looking (to me) settings and it seemed damn fast FPS (to me): looks so good and played great! The input lag was not noticeable (again, to me - not a gamer... I died in Pleasant Park trying to figure out how to build a cone). I think I might be their core audience for this, and am extremely tempted to sign up for $5 a month. My GPU sucks, hard drive is always "nearly full" so keeping games around isn't an option. For a casual like me this seems... futuristic!
- skay- 7y agoI am in a similar boat as you -- it feels great to game on my Mac. I do notice some of the latency when I play Doom (granted this is a high "fidelity" game) but for casual gaming this is great.
- JohnTHaller 7y agoSemi-Related: You've upgraded to at least 8GB and an SSD right?
- ksec 7y agoYes, there are at least 100M Mac (worldwide) users who could play games now. Would have signed up even for $10. Considering the quality of those titles. Compare to other $5 Gaming Subscription like Apple Arcade, Nvidia 's offering is much more attractive.
- danielbln 7y agoyou desribe almost my exact usecase and limitations. 2015 MBP, never free disk space. Being able to play these games and not having to think about hardware and installation is great. I've signed up for the $5 tier.
- endorphone 7y agoThis is a fantastic service. I signed up to the beta just a few weeks ago and love it. The fact that it just uses my Steam account (or my son's Epic account) makes it an easy winner over alternatives. The performance, in my experience, has been fantastic. Suddenly on my MBP I can play games that were only previously on my Windows box with a beefy GPU. Better still the fans stay at a minimal level -- on this machine it's barely more than streaming a video. I have a dislike for hearing the GPU fan grinding and this is a relief. On the flip side if you aren't really close to one of their data centers, it isn't a great experience for twitch FPS games. I tried pubg and it...worked, but I fell from competitive to pretty mediocre given that everyone else had a couple of frames head start. Still, it's an instant sign up for me. Even for games that I can play locally on my laptops, like Civ 6, doing so with minimal local power suckage, heat and fan grind makes it worth it. I'm outsourcing those to an nvidia datacenter, of course, but better than than in my lap. My experience with this has been much better than even Steam in-house streaming (where I used that big beefy Windows box with a high-end GPU in another room to play from my MBP). And for those who questioned how the process works, for a steam game it kicks you into a virtualized version of steam that you log into. On first play you "install" the game but they seem to have images for everything so it's instant. Then you play in a virtualized session. It's very well done.
- DanielleMolloy 7y agoThanks for the explanation! I have no idea why your comment is downvoted right now. The link to Steam is extremely interesting to me, I did not own gaming hardware (except for a Switch) for long time.
- endorphone 7y agoThank you. As to the downvoting -- it takes just one angry guy mad that something doesn't conform with their bias. It's all good.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- skay- 7y agoI have used "GeForce Now" for the past couple of months (during the beta) and it works quite well overall. The latency exists but it is quite low; given that my last few gaming years have been on the PS4 I am more used to this than your typical PC gamer. There are some quirks with it especially around getting the resolution right. Sometimes the output is a bit blurry because it doesn't quite match the resolution/aspect ratio of your screen. I would say that it is worth giving this a try. The free limited version is idea for as a trial.
- creyes 7y agoI've been using NOW for ~6 months now and it's incredible. Are you going to get 144hz 4k gaming performance? No for sure but I've been using it for a couple of reasons: 1) Games that aren't available on my Macbook. Simple things like Legends of Runeterra and Magic Arena and Magic Online. Not super graphically intensive Geforce Now has worked better than Wine/VM solutions 2) Games that my Macbook just can't play like F1 2019. Good enough for both single and multiplayer. Gonna miss it being free but easily worth $5.
- datashow 7y agoMac or laptop seems to be a good reason for this service, but I am not sure about its value for a PC desktop. $5 / month for 2 years is $120. I can get an OK graphic card to play game on my PC with this price.
- xbmcuser 7y agoYou can play games with Ray tracing at 4k HDR. I would buy a graphics cards that can do that for $200
- ta999999171 7y agoPeople still pay multiple thousands extra over years to rent cars and homes, this is no different. People don't have upfront money. People don't see the value in owning their things - as is intended. Our society is all credit based. As is intended.
- ksec 7y agoYou didn't include the cost of Games. Which is easily a lot more than $120.
- spzb 7y agoGeforce Now is a 'bring your own license' system. The subscription doesn't include the cost of the game.
- 7y ago
- makoz 7y agoI tested this out when it was in BETA about a year ago. It worked pretty well with Path of Exile but it ran into issues when I was trying out Monster Hunter World iirc. Word of caution - if you have a bandwidth limit it burns through it pretty quickly.
- TMWNN 7y agoYes, GeForce NOW forced me to get an ISP without a bandwidth cap, as I for the first time found that 1TB/month was insufficient. I was hitting 130GB/day.
- zetazzed 7y agoArs review: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/nvidia-has-shaken-up-the-netflix-for-games-model-with-its-challenge-to-stadia/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/nvidia-has-shaken-up-... (Disclaimer: I'm an NVIDIA employee who works on unrelated projects, but I really enjoyed using the beta of GeForce Now.)
- xfalcox 7y agoDo you know if this runs on public clouds? just trying to gauge how long it (if ever) would be available in Brazil...
- hapless 7y agoLinux and MacOS are each about 1% of the market, yet this product supports MacOS and excludes Linux. That doesn’t seem like a wise choice. Ordinarily no product needs to target 1% platforms, but this product specifically seems like its early adopters would naturally be non-Windows desktop users. Cutting off half of that crucial adoption seems ... stupid.
- iamaelephant 7y agoMost articles I can find put MacOS at 9-15%, about 5-8 times greater than Linux.
- onli 7y agoAnd there are way more games available on Linux, plus many more Linux PCs will have a strong graphics card. Probably a smaller market. Add to that the strained relationship between Nvidia and the Linux community and Now not being on Linux is really not surprising. A pity, I was about to test this.
- ksec 7y agoThere are 100M Active users on Mac. Est around 1B PC at Home ( Excluding Business usage ) Both numbers are significantly higher than Linux.
- PascLeRasc 7y agoMacOS users stereotypically have more disposable income (not proving a source for that), and Linux users have a lot more hardware flexibility so they don't need a "gaming PC in the cloud" as much.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- billars 7y agosomething is going on, I registered for the free service, clicking system requirements or any other link gets me to a microsoftonline login, probably some internal service that shouldn't be exposed, https://login.microsoftonline.com/43083d15-variousnumbers-39efd9ccc17a/saml2 https://login.microsoftonline.com/43083d15-variousnumbers-39... "Selected user account does not exist in tenant 'NVIDIA Corporation' and cannot access the application 'https://preview.nvidia.com' https://preview.nvidia.com' in that tenant. The account needs to be added as an external user in the tenant first. Please use a different account."
- sickygnar 7y agoJust tried it from 5ghz wifi on a 200mbit connection. It looks like it added me to the correct region (southwest) and set me to 720p@60fps. Tried playing Mordhau, a "hardcore" first person melee game where milliseconds count, and had a hard time due to input lag and occasional stuttering. The lag seemed to bounce around a bit, sometimes it was ok sometimes it was worse. I only played for a few minutes, but it seems like it would work better for more casual and console oriented games. I'm optimistic it will work better on a wired connection. For reference, I usually play it on a decent gaming pc on a wired connection (ryzen 1700, 1660ti)
- Lorin 7y agoTried founder membership to try Apex Legends - plenty of stutter and delay when attempting to play from Toronto. I'll stick to ye old local play for now.
- jorams 7y agoThis landing page (and the associated support pages) weirdly never mention what they include in "your favorite stores". This seems like crucial information, and was certainly the first thing I wanted to know. Why not mention it? First I thought they might not support Steam and be ashamed of it, but the comments here make clear that they do. Then there are comments here talking about 4K, but Nvidia only seems to mention 720p and 1080p. Sure, most users' network connection probably isn't good enough, but why not tell us? It could certainly be a selling point for connecting this to a 4K television.
- rcarmo 7y agoGood news. I’ve been playing Quake Champions on it every now and then (haven’t for a few weeks), and the experience on my iMac is pretty good at roughly 30ms ping: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2018/09/30/1600 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2018/09/30/1600
- papermachete 7y agoLag, no mods, no hacks, and compressed 4K looks worse than raw 1080p. When will companies learn?
- joshstrange 7y agoSynchronous XMLHttpRequest on the main thread, CORS errors, and more... Great job Nvidia. I really enjoy clicking the button to join and having the whole UI freeze for 30 seconds. Oh even better... Logging out doesn't log you out, I had to clear cookies to actually log out. Edit: Uhhh, even that didn't work, wth is going on here?