Photo Credit: Nvidia
As everyone races to release gaming services, Nvidia finally joins Apple Arcade and Google Stadia by launching GeForce Now.
What is Offered
The essence of GeForce now is to allow you to play PC games not only on PC but on various other devices such as mobile devices, desktops, Nvidia Shield streaming compatible devices, laptops, Macs and low-power Chromebooks.
How it works
The service allows you to game without having powerful hardware. In short, you rent a gaming PC in the closest data centre to you. To use GeForce Now, you need to download the app on Windows, macOS, Android or Nvidia Shield TV.
Availability
The service is not yet available everywhere. To use GeForce Now, you need to be close to a data centre to get the lowest latency possible. Latency is
the delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer.
Lexico Dictionary
Latency is extremely important in online gaming. If you have high latency, measured in milliseconds (ms), you may miss another player walking by or the level boss throwing a punch at you.
There are currently nine data centres situated in the US, Europe has five, Japan has two and Korea only one.
You can request to be notified when the service becomes available in your region by heading over to the product site and clicking on “JOIN TODAY” which will take to to the “NOTIFY ME” button if the service is not available in your region.
What is offered
GeForce Now gives you the ability to stream games directly from Steam, Epic as well as other gaming services. There will not be 4K streaming at first and the frame rate will be governed at 60fps.
This service gives you the ability to play games on the highest possible graphics settings without having powerful hardware. For instance, you will be able to play the newest games on an Apple MacBook or a low-budget Windows laptop. The device just needs to fulfil the requirements needed to run the GeForce Now app.
Pricing
There are two tiers at this point in time. A free tier that will allow you to play for one hour at a time. After an hour, your session will be closed and you will be able to log back in and resume where you left the previous session. The free subscription also doesn’t support RTX hardware and will put you in a cue to access the service.
The $5 p/m or R118.48 p/m* subscription will give you access to that RTX hardware everyone wants, take away your limit of 1 hour of playtime and will not make you wait in a cue to access the service.
*- Exchange rate from Investing.com as on 5 February 2020 at 08:15
*- Prices exclude taxes
Closing
Nvidia made gaming accessible to millions of gamers who don’t have the money to buy expensive hardware. I will compare the service with buying a gaming PC in the near future, to see if GeForce Now is worth it and if you should get the hardware yourself.
