UPDATE 18/03/2021 - nVidia has accounced that GeForce NOW is introducing "Founders for life" (info at the bottom of the article)
UPDATE 12/06/2020 - nVidia has announced that GeForce NOW Founders Membership free introductory time will expire, and that starting June 15th all Founders will be charged with €5,49 for one month of service usage
UPDATE 21/04/2020 - nVidia just announced that they will be extending the initial billing of their service for Founder members, starting June 2020. Also, most of AAA titles from Ubisoft is comming to this service. Complete FarCry and Assassin’s Creed were added today with more titles comming as well. Let's hope that other major developer studios will come aboard as well.
UPDATE 09/03/2020 - Looks like this is not a temporary setback but rather a pattern. 2K games has also pulled out, so no more Civ, Xcom or any other game from this publisher as well. Atm I have lost interest in this platform. Considering that there is a 3 months free "founders" option I will stay till the last minute, but if something doesn't change and soon, I will leave this platform for good. Too bad.
UPDATE 22/02/2020 - After Activision Blizzard announced that they are pulling all of their titles from GeForce NOW service, same has happened today with Bethesda. So Fallout, Doom, and all the rest of their games are no longer available on this service. If this will change or not is yet to be see, but at the moment we can only hope that this is a temporary setback
After quite some time, it’s here. NVIDIA’s very own cloud gaming platform, GeForce NOW.
Why is this such a big deal (for me)? Well as a Mac user I have a limited access to some AAA titles made exclusively for Windows platform. Sure there’s BootCamp method but really, me installing Windows crap on a Mac? No tnx.
Still Mac platform over the years, has gotten some great game titles from various developer studios but still some games tend to stay on Windows only.
As a World of Warcraft veteran myself I spend a lot of years playing that game natively on a Mac so there was no need for any alternatives.
Nowadays I don’t play much and if I do those are Blizzard titles that again, work on Mac natively. But what does that have to do with GeForce NOW or any cloud gaming platform?
Well, if you want to play your heavy Windows only titles on any device that are not even designed to play games, then things get interesting.
For the past two days I have been using GeForce NOW service as a free user. That means that all you need to do is setup a free account with the service and you can start using it. Number of games in their catalog is vast but the best part is that if you own a game already on Steam for example, all you need to do is log into steam and press play. How cool is that?
Free tier has some limitations one being you are limited to a one hour session (who said that was a bad thing, right?) and at the end you have to restart your session again. There is also a line that you have to wait depending on the usage of the service etc… So all in all if you don’t wanna pay 5€/mo for a premium service you can test it out this way.
So how well supported is this service worldwide? Currently it is supported in the US and Europe with a large number of servers (9 in the US and 5 in Europe). Being a user that’s not even on a hard line connection myself (still waiting for fiber to come this year) but instead I’m using a 4G connection (50/40 Mbits), I have to say that this service run perfect, and I mean, perfect.
Logon, and click play
After you install a GeForce NOW client on your machine (win, mac, android, no linux and iOS at the moment), all you have to do is log in, add your game and press play, that’s it! The client will automatically load up in full screen and load your game in the resolution that you have set or that its find suitable depending on your current Internet connection.
If you are running a multi monitor solution, unlike some other cloud gaming solutions, GFNOW will only use one single monitor and you can use others for anything else. Great work nVIDIA!
What happens next is that GFNOW will invoke your Steam game (maybe ask you to log into Steam as well to get things going) and in matter of seconds you are playing on a 9y old MacBook Air a fast paced shooter in 1080p (Ultra details) from 2016! What?? With no noticeable input lag after an hour of gaming with 0.0 problems, you will forget that you are streaming. Brilliant! Long live cloud gaming!
So how much bandwidth do you need and how much traffic is being generated? Well that will depend on the streaming quality of your choice. From 720p and 30fps at about 2GB/hour to about 10GB/hour for 1080p and 60fps. Now this is not important if you are playing at home or somewhere where you have unlimited data, but on a mobile platform (Android) via your phone, you might eat up your data plan in matter of hours, so be mindful.
Personally I’m not a gamepad user and I never was. Keyboard+mouse is my combo. Still, GFNOW supports gamepad support so if you are into that, go for it.
The client has also an in game overlay of controls that you can invoke. It shows your time left, screenshots, in game recordings etc… Again, not a lot of controls and options but more than needed if you ask me. Also, you can select if you want to see a network status icon on the side of your screen that will tell you if your connections is bad or even in the red.
Cloud gaming is finally here and nVIDIA has done it, the right way. Top job!
Founder for life!
As of March 18, 2021, your GeForce NOW Founders membership will have a new benefit applied, Founders for Life.
What is Founders for Life?
GeForce NOW members who started a paid Founders membership on or before March 17, 2021 will continue to receive the introductory price of €5.49/month* for the plan features without a set end date, so long as NVIDIA offers the GeForce NOW service in your country.
Maintaining your Benefit
To keep the Founders for Life benefit, you must maintain your on-going paid Founders membership without interruption. That requires you keep your payment information current and make timely payments. You must also use the service in accordance with the terms of use.
If for any reason your paid Founders membership ends, you make a billing modification or if there is a termination, the benefit is forfeited and cannot be restarted. This benefit is only available to NVIDIA GeForce NOW users who are billed by NVIDIA or the designated merchant of record in the US, Canada, UK and members of the European Union.
Have you tried GFNOW or any other cloud gaming solution? Let me hear your comments.