GeForce Now reaches a million users as Bethesda backs out

[Lew Zealand]

There are no Tomb Raider games on GeFN so I can't try something newer like SotTR which is about the newest game I play or own.

 

[Duke9192]

I prefer my desktop with rtx 2080, but... Thinking outside the box I wonder what cloud gaming could bring in the way of cheat less online gaming? I mean, if all of the processing and data is on the server end for all players wouldn't it be more difficult to hack/cheat/exploit? Even if that were the case, I still don't like the idea of losing true ownership, plus my Internet service sucks here.

 

[numnumnum]

I'm not much of a gamer, but from time to time I like to play rich story games, that are rarity these days. So with all that I don't feel like I want to buy gaming PC as I already have 3 laptops which covers 99% of my needs. GeForce Now seems like a great solution, plus it allows to play games that you already own, if they support these games. I will not be surprised if companies that have left Nvidia's GeForce Now will sign contract with services like Stadia or alike, where you have to purchase their games once again, because why not to sell the same game 2 or 3 times, if you can? Also I'm interested in legal aspect of such "withdrawal". I have rented game from steam for the price, I also have rented some computational power, I.e. virtual machine from Nvidia, why can't I play where I want? That's just absurd.

 

[darkzelda]

This service is not for people who owns a powerful gaming pc, the target audience is different. For example, I have a great gaming computer, and I use it all the time between work and gaming. I've been planning on building a computer for my daughter, but it's really expensive, even using some spare components I have. Well, with geforce now I've been able to configure her really slow laptop to play games at 1080p using a TV and an Xbox One controller, I've been even able to play some online games with her. I'm really surprised with the quality and low latency of the service. Heck I live in south America where the service is not even available, and had to use a VPN to download the app and subscribe to the service, which means I'm connecting to servers really far to my location and the latency is still low. For now my daughter will use GeForce Now until I build her a computer.

 

[Tams80]

There is a mountain of resistance to it, but the cloud is the future and while the monolith of the desktop pc will probably be culturally relevant for several decades after today, the utility and viability of having 1 has less than a decade left.

The latency issues have not been resolved (in fact the whole 'negative' latency fiasco just suggests that they may never be, if they need to wheel out bullshit like that). Ownership hasn't been solved.

And most importantly of all, access to high enough bandwidth and data allowances (ultimately ISPs' bandwidth) is not up to par. At all. Most people cannot stream games reliably, let alone well. And while this may end up being something that with time can be solved, I don't see it happening in the next decade.

A PS4 and a gaming PC fail pretty spectacularly to do one thing: be a portable computer. GeForce Now is superior to the vast majority of laptops today yet will still run on one of them. That's how I use it and IMO it's a slam dunk for that common use case as more laptops are sold today than desktops.

Which is all useless unless you have a good or better internet connection. And good not just in terms of enough bandwidth, but also latency (for most games).

Don't get me wrong. For the people who can use this service and are prepared to put up with the disadvantages in return for the advantages, it is great. It exists and you can use it. It doesn't mean other ways of playing games are going to disappear, and this attitude of them 'deserving' to disappear is frankly silly. It's like the bloody console wars all over again.

 

[johnofo]

I think the idea is you can play 1080p 30/60fps games on a potato. Bitwit has a video testing it out and he had DOOM running really well. Think he was getting 100 - 133ms input latency once he was hardwired to the router but said it was very playable. Can run AAA games at high qualtiy settings with good framerates on the cheapest CPU with built in graphics and just 4GB of RAM.

I get a consistent 6.5MBps download in the UK with no data cap so reckon this would work pretty well BUT I'll stick to running games installed on my PC for now. I prefer no input lag and play a lot of competitive games so even a little latency would be a major issue

 

[Danny101]

Internet Outages. Another case in point against game streaming. It happens a lot. Like it's happening to me right now. I'm having to use my minuscule cell data just to illustrate this point. C'este le vie.