GeForce NOW game streaming service

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Nvidia is launching an online game streaming service called GeForce NOW.

Quote

For several years NVIDIA has been building the world's best cloud gaming technology with the ability to stream at a crystal-clear 1080p 60FPS, with low latency. Today, we're announcing GeForce NOW for Mac and PC, a new cloud gaming service that transforms your Mac or PC into a high-performance gaming PC by connecting them to blazing-fast GeForce GTX 1080 gaming PCs hosted in the cloud.

Using our unparalleled cloud gaming technology, and the performance of the world's fastest consumer GPUs, you'll be able to play the latest PC games at exceptional detail levels, with super smooth framerates, for an unrivaled experience that can otherwise only be obtained through a PC system upgrade.

To use GeForce NOW for Mac and PC, simply load the GeForce NOW app and install your favorite Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG or Battle.net games, that you own, onto your virtual GeForce NOW GeForce GTX 1080 PC. Once loaded, enjoy your games with high-quality visual effects, high framerates, and NVIDIA GameWorks effects courtesy of the cloud-based GeForce GTX 1080 GeForce NOW PCs.

Alternatively, install games that use a dedicated launcher, such as World of Tanks and Warframe, and play with and against other gamers, all via the cloud.

GeForce NOW also makes things easy – all patching, game configuring and driver updating is handled automatically by the GeForce NOW infrastructure. Even save games, achievements and other settings are automatically synchronized with digital game platforms, enabling you to instantly pick up from where you stopped.

I'm going to quote myself here from another topic:

On 7/16/2016 at 10:12 AM, Sledgstone said:

I've said this before but I still think the consoles will eventually die off and turn into streaming only services once bandwidth and controller latency issues eventually get improved. Playstation 7 will probably be the equivalent of a roku stick with a controller. That way we'll never have to upgrade a console again. They'll just upgrade their servers that run all the games and there will always be PC quality graphics. And once that becomes a thing all the PC games will turn into streaming only services too. Even tho everyone's PCs could run the games themselves the game companies will become streaming only to stop pirating games once and for all. Sure there will be countries or locations with crap internet still, but by the time Playstation 7 is coming out the wireless networks could be so advanced we could use it's internet connection instead of having any more landlines. Then again I could be predicting something that will never happen like all those people back in the 40s thought we'd have flying cars by now.

With Playstation having it's own streaming service and now Nvidia making it's own service, having to own physical consoles and PCs specifically for gaming might come to an end within our lifetimes.

The downside to the Nvidia service is the cost. I've been seeing the numbers "$25 per 20 hours of gaming" floating around alot. If so, thats a hell of an expense for now.

Source: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/geforce-now-for-mac-and-pc-announced-at-ces-2017

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Until it becomes affordable for everyone and I mean everyone we will never see a full switch to a streaming game service. Not only that but very few people are going to be on board for paying a fee and a rental fee to play a game (people already bitch about paying for things like DLC and this is roughly the same thing and at the end of the day you don't even own the game, just a right to access a server to play a game). I still think the Playstation Now service is a crock of shit since you pay a monthly access fee plus an hourly fee to play a game (with prices being based on game popularity or series name) and won't be caught dead using it (and there are some games I'd really like to play on it).

Secondly hardware will always be a thing no matter what any service says. Consoles might become a thing of the past but PC's won't because, at least with this system, you'll always need some sort of hardware to run it (in this case you need a system running an nVidia card). Honestly it's just another gimmick to try and weasel even more money out of consumers hands (kind of like paying full price for a digital copy of a game (which is absurd)) and this one does it monthly/hourly.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

This absolutely won't work if it ends up like movie/TV services are now. Gamers are even less likely to sub to several different services because they have the one game they want to play that's not on the service they have. Plus games can't make money like this while Movies and TV shows make revenue via theaters and sponsors. Like strider said, paying fees on top of fees is a no go for gamers. That's why MMOs don't work on console. 

Fiber optic Internet service will have to become the standard for this to be viable, which is probably a decade away from happening. 

Its one of those things thats good in concept, but in reality everyone wants a piece of the pie and you'll have too many different services walling off games to under their brand. A whole new era of 3rd party wars would start that would collapse the industry because, while it worked when you paid $600 for both consoles, now you'll pay that in a few months and more on top of it if you want to keep playing all the games you want. Origin and Steam would have their own service, then Amazon, Nvidia, Uplay, Netflix would probably get into it, WB would try to make one probably.... just a bad idea all around. Sure a lot of games would be on all the services, but they would all have exclusives trying to rake in subs.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/

Geforce Now exited beta and is fully launched. I own a nvidia shield and have had access to the beta for over a year now. Last time I used it there were connection issues but when it worked, it worked damn good. Last time I used the beta was probably 7 or so months ago so I'm guessing they resolved all their issues since then. This service now makes google Stadia obsolete and I bet some youtubers will be making some videos on it soon. Unlike stadia, nvidia kept the product on beta for almost 2 years I think to fix the bugs.

Also all your steam and epic game accounts can be linked to the service so you don't have to buy any new games. Link the account, tell the service to install the game on nvidia's servers and then start playing at pretty much max settings. Looks like the current price is $5 a month for a limited time with first 3 months free. After that I guess we'll see the full monthly price. But in comparison to stadia, it's drastically cheaper, more reliable and you can stream your games on almost any PC, phone, tablet or nvidia shield.

On a side note my nvidia shield is connected over 5 ghtz wifi and from the comments I've read, if you are going to stream over wifi it needs to be 5 ghtz wifi.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention there is a free account also that has streaming services available for 1 hour sessions, but you'll probably be in a server queue when you go to login.

[Myk JL 1,731]

On 2/5/2020 at 8:16 AM, Sledgstone said:

I own a nvidia shield and have had access to the beta for over a year now.

I now barely regret not buying an Nvidia Shield Portable, but hope on some level that Nvidia will make another IF the Alienware UFO doesn't happen.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

That Shield Portable would actually be pretty damn cool along with the geforce now service. You never know, they might make a new portable. Nvidia just recently released 2 new versions of Shield TV so they're definitely staying in the hardware market outside of graphics cards. I love my shield tv. I stream my games from my PC straight to my living room tv with no lag and max graphics. I use either the shield game controller or a wireless xbox 360 controller I have or I use my logitech wireless mouse/keyboard combo depending on what game I'm playing. Lately I've been playing Starcraft 1 remastered in my living room and I love it. For games that use a controller, I'd definitely use the shield portable if I wanted to game outside my house or while taking a dump.  Honestly, after using a Nvidia graphics card (the amount of updates can be a bit too much, but at least they support their stuff thoroughly) and a Nvidia shield, I think I'm a Nvidia fanboy now.  That shield was definitely worth the $150 I paid at the time. Best streaming device ever made and its an amazing plex server with my external hard drive hooked up to it. I'm tempted to try some different mobile games like Arknights to see how well it plays with the shield controller. Since its an android tv I can download any android app and play it on my 4k tv. The only downside is the lack of a touch screen interface. I'm not sure how it compensates for that. I'll have to download some games and try them out to see.