Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate vs. New Graphics Card

[BigMeatyClackers]

What's the latency like on something like this? I'm assuming it's an absolute no go for competitive shooters.

 

[loki1944]

No reason you need more than a 1080Ti for 1440p or 980ti/1070 to play @1080p medium to high; R9 290/GTX 980/780 still good for 1080p low to medium. Artificial requirements or unecessary gimmicks like ray tracing do not represent the reality.

I know this because I test dozens of cards a year across dozens of games.

 

[JrFoz]

What's the latency like on something like this? I'm assuming it's an absolute no go for competitive shooters.

Correct. CSGO is a no go.

 

[Ricepony]

Great timing!

I literally have the same 2070 super PC setup and came to the same conclusions… a year ago. However since the 4080 tier is upon us I signed back up and listed my PC for sale.

I’ve tried the LG app and was also disappointed, the PC app is the best experience thus far, better than the Shield TV Pro btw.

Ultimately it’s worth a shot if you are on the fence and it is truly impressive that it works at all considering the lack of local hardware.

The biggest revelation to me personally is that this tech could be combined with powerful local hardware to produce an even better gaming experience than anyone has seen, efficiently a super computer.
This tech in time will allow our phones to be essentially displays with everything streamed in, nothing local, that will allow for some truly innovative products moving forward.

 

[IksPiks]

This is the end goal, cloud everything. You will own nothing and you will be happy...

... as long as you're being a good boy and your social credit is A-OK.

 

[rmcrys]

Actually you really should consider the whole costs of owning a card when comparing to streaming. No 1 being the power consumption. A PC with a RTX3080 consumes about 320w more than the same PC running on IG. That 320w multiplied by 8 hours and 30 days is about 77kwh at the end of the month which at least in my country is about 15.5$ tax included. So that leaves only 4.5 bucks as the real cost which is also very quickly mitigated by the other very real cost which is depreciation. An 800$ 3080 will probably fetch you some 3-400$ in about 3-4 years from now when you decide to upgrade. That's another some 100$/year of depreciation. Taking all these into account streaming is in fact cheaper than owning a card so the only real debate here is in fact the quality of streaming vs the cost of owning.

I tried Xbox ultimate on my Samsung TV S95B and worked very well but image quality compression was not great. But considering
- I only use the TV, no other device: around 200W
- a standard PC while gaming: monitor 100W, dGPU 250W, CPU 180W, MB and ram around 130W = 660W

400W difference which makes over 300h/ year on my country 240€/year

So using my tv + geforce now 4k = 240€ which is EXACTLY the same what I would spend on energy difference powering a similar rig. But without needing to spend money on the hardware! And playing everywhere...

Anyways, the image quality it's still not quite there and nor the lag, so for the hard core gamer is not enough, but almost there...

 

[garthgoyle]

Now, I would actually like to see someone do the test on (an old) crappy laptop, where you can not just upgrade GPU, but you have a good base for streaming.
Like kids' school laptops, so you do not need to buy them "gamer PC" for their Roblox and Fortnite adventures.
Does anyone have this experience?

I'm playing Destiny 2, which requires a lot of power and would never run on a Mac, on my 2012 Mac Mini and the service is great. It runs faster, and smoother than PlayStation 4, on an 11 years old Mac with no graphics card. I have zero lag, looks great, can't complain. To make it better, it's free.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Hardware leasing is inevitable. Subcription based 'ownership'. Which of course really means they own you.

 

[letsgoiowa]

The end goal here is for Nvidia to make GPUs starting at $1k+ and jack up prices for cloud gaming to make it the only viable option for most people.

 

[waclark]

"GeForce Now is Nvidia's take on game streaming that lets users play the games they own from the cloud with all processing taking place on their hardware."

Well of course they "recommend" beefier, aka new and obscenely expensive, Nvidia GPUs for this pie in the sky!

Another scheme to push new victims to buy new Nvidia expensive cards and make money from this gimmicky platform in the process!

Those same games run very well on my old card, thank you very much, and nice try!!

Uh, I think the point here is NOT to buy a new GPU. Stream games and let Nvidia deal with GPU upgrades.

 

[waclark]

That $20 per month price quickly adds up

But, not if you compare it to buying a new GPU every 2-4 years. At $240/year, you could run for 4 years for under $1,000 whereas a new GPU, like a 7900 or 4080 is going to cost you $1,000 in hardware not to mention utility bills.

 

[waclark]

I tried both nvidia (ewwww) and Stadia and Stadia was always more "smooth".

A shame that the main reason many didnt support Stadia was the fear that their purchases would be lost if Google decided to cancel the service yet they all got a refund.

If Google had said from the get go that their purchases would get refunded, many would had supported.

Forgot to add, remember that some publishers removed their games from GFN, so even owning them is not guarantee that you will be be able to play them. Sorry if I missed that from the article, only glanced over it.

If I own it I can load locally. That's kind of the whole point isn't it? Stadia was doomed over no BYOG. I have a few games I play, didn't want to have to buy them again to play on Stadia. And I can install them on any machine I play on if the streaming service goes away.

 

[Axeia]

Although I can see this financially making sense at the moment, it definitely steers us closer to the dystopian future where other people get to make the decisions for you. You don't own it and thus inherently you'll be going along with NVIDIA's whims.
As is evident from video streaming services - they all start out cheap, then when they got enough customers prices go up (and up and up and up). More players enter the market which instead of leading to competition just leads to exclusives and higher prices. So what seems nice now I'll guarantee you that 10 years from now you'll regret supporting it if you need 3-4-5 different subscription services to play the games you want to play and the prices of every single one is 3 times of the one service now.

I'll stay far away from these gaming streaming services because streaming video leads to rather significant quality losses still and adding more points of latency to a game isn't great either (although in multiplayer games it can be somewhat offset by not having to connect to a 'game server' far away if the game server is hosted in the same location as the game streaming server). And more importantly - we've seen what happened with Netflix (and Hulu, and HBO, and Amazon Prime, and Disney+ etc).
A big downside to not owning things is also when you get nostalgic in 20-30 years and you want to replay a game and it's nowhere to be found because you don't own it. Although that's already a risk as much games now will be either a download from Steam or Epic Games and who knows how long they'll be around but there's always the option of donning the black hat with a skull & bones on it if there's no other option left.

 

[amghwk]

I would rather have the POWER with me all the time than being at the mercy of the distant server and their terms and unreliable internet connection.

And people should move away from subscription-based services. Like really.

 

[godrilla]

I think buying a GPU with a credit card and paying it off slowly would be a bit more expensive per month than GFNow subscription but it shouldn't be too hard and you get a regular GPU, all the benefits, none of the BS. That's what I would choose.

Currently there are 0% interest rates CC x 21 month offerings so the 7900xt could be yours at $42 per month ( $879.99) Zotac card via the Amazon. 4070ti about $38 per month will probably get you superior experience than even the 4080 via GeForce now.

It just takes a few bad laggy connections to turn someone off the cloud gaming vs a more reliable conventional PC in front of you with minimal lag.

Reminder of Onlive and Standia failures.
While the industry attempts to push for cloud gaming with their infinite resources we should just watch them fail and enjoy the show. Imo say no to cloud gaming!

 

[punctualturn]

If I own it I can load locally. That's kind of the whole point isn't it? Stadia was doomed over no BYOG. I have a few games I play, didn't want to have to buy them again to play on Stadia. And I can install them on any machine I play on if the streaming service goes away.

Actually, no.

Example, I have all the Arkham games and once GFN came out of beta, WB removed all of them.

I can play them on my pc, but not on my Shield/GFN.

 

[waclark]

Actually, no.

Example, I have all the Arkham games and once GFN came out if beta, WB removed all of them.

I can play them on my pc, but not on my Shield/GFN.

But you can play them. With Stadia you had no option to play on your PC. To, me, not being able to play locally and having to repurchase games I already had was a deal-breaker for Stadia. It's good that Google is refunding the purchases.

 

[punctualturn]

But you can play them. With Stadia you had no option to play on your PC. To, me, not being able to play locally and having to repurchase games I already had was a deal-breaker for Stadia. It's good that Google is refunding the purchases.

I get what you mean, but you are looking at both services wrong.

If anything, Stadia was its own platform, proper cloud with minimal hardware purchase on your part.
GFN is more flexible since you buy the game and have the option of local on your pc and cloud with GFN. The problem with GFN is that not all games that you own are available on their platform.
I think, Stadia was simply ahead of its time.

 

[waclark]

I get what you mean, but you are looking at both services wrong.

If anything, Stadia was its own platform, proper cloud with minimal hardware purchase on your part.
GFN is more flexible since you buy the game and have the option of local on your pc and cloud with GFN. The problem with GFN is that not all games that you own are available on their platform.
I think, Stadia was simply ahead of its time.

I think I am looking at both services correctly, it's a service that allows me to play games on a device that would not necessarily be able to play games if installed locally. Both services do that. The fact that Stadia is "its own platform" isn't necessarily a selling point. Especially if I cannot move purchased games to a different service down the road. Also, my understanding of GFN is that you can game with friends who may have purchased games for local use and are not necessarily using GFN. I believe Stadia requires everyone playing to be using a Stadia supported and purchased game, is that not right?

For me, these services will only be successful if I can move my content freely between gaming servers. Any restriction on that, without some value-add, would cause me to aviod that service. All of these services, at the moment, are a little ahead of their time. Until high-speed, low latency Internet access is universal these services won't be ubiquitous. Of course, high GPU prices are probably helping them right now.

 

[godrilla]

It costs 240 a month for ultimate, and a 4090 is 1600. if you buy a 4090 just wait 7 years and you will get better performance and save money. just buy a gpu and use the free tier at your local liabrairy or at school or something

$1600 divided by 21 payments with 0% credit card is $76 minimum monthly payments before owning it. After that you can sell it and apply funds to new flagship rinse repeat. So for summary matching your monthly fee to GeForce now x 21 payments lands you on a $441 tare gpu which lands you on a 6750xt to 6800 radeon gpu
for 2x monthly payment you can go with 4070ti to 6900xtx for 3x you can have 4080 and 4x you can get a 4090.

 

[punctualturn]

The fact that Stadia is "its own platform" isn't necessarily a selling point.

I agree, but Stadia was, for lack of a better description, a "virtual" console and in some cases, it was actually free to use that "console" after you purchased the games on their store.
GFN is a cloud option that allows you to play games that you purchased on Steam, but with limitations.

Especially if I cannot move purchased games to a different service down the road.

That applies to every single platform that currently exist. You cannot buy a game on Steam and play that game on your Xbox or PS5. For that, you have to buy that game again.
Valve said that if they ever die, they would push an update to allow your games to be used without their client. In Stadia case, they simply offered a refund for your purchases. They should had said that was an option so people wouldnt be scared of losing their purchases.

Also, my understanding of GFN is that you can game with friends who may have purchased games for local use and are not necessarily using GFN.

I really dont know neither can confirm that because I avoid playing with others online. I learned my lesson with cheaters and other niceties since the original Quake days.

I believe Stadia requires everyone playing to be using a Stadia supported and purchased game, is that not right?

Thats correct and that applies to Xbox, Sony, Nintendo and if I'm not wrong, Steam.

For me, these services will only be successful if I can move my content freely between gaming servers. Any restriction on that, without some value-add, would cause me to aviod that service.

Sorry but be fair, you are already limited as explained above.

All of these services, at the moment, are a little ahead of their time. Until high-speed, low latency Internet access is universal these services won't be ubiquitous.

Agreed.

Of course, high GPU prices are probably helping them right now.

That was one of reasons why I liked Stadia. They had free tiers that only required that you purchased the game and they even had free games, so you only paid for the controller, which pretty much the essence of this article.
Given that we no longer own the games (we own a license that can be revoked without getting a refund) I am at a point that I would prefer something like Stadia instead of buying expensive hardware that consumes insane amounts of power that end up coming out of my pockets in big chunks, instead of small monthly fees.

 

[Namtrooper]

Still personally upset that they are killing the gamestream feature on shield. I know way off topic. Still.

 

[CapNemo72]

Although I can see this financially making sense at the moment, it definitely steers us closer to the dystopian future where other people get to make the decisions for you. You don't own it and thus inherently you'll be going along with NVIDIA's whims.
As is evident from video streaming services - they all start out cheap, then when they got enough customers prices go up (and up and up and up). More players enter the market which instead of leading to competition just leads to exclusives and higher prices. So what seems nice now I'll guarantee you that 10 years from now you'll regret supporting it if you need 3-4-5 different subscription services to play the games you want to play and the prices of every single one is 3 times of the one service now.

I'll stay far away from these gaming streaming services because streaming video leads to rather significant quality losses still and adding more points of latency to a game isn't great either (although in multiplayer games it can be somewhat offset by not having to connect to a 'game server' far away if the game server is hosted in the same location as the game streaming server). And more importantly - we've seen what happened with Netflix (and Hulu, and HBO, and Amazon Prime, and Disney+ etc).
A big downside to not owning things is also when you get nostalgic in 20-30 years and you want to replay a game and it's nowhere to be found because you don't own it. Although that's already a risk as much games now will be either a download from Steam or Epic Games and who knows how long they'll be around but there's always the option of donning the black hat with a skull & bones on it if there's no other option left.

GOG lets you download install files, so that you can install them even if offline

 

[Beerfloat]

Sorry, but 8 hours a day all month? That is not a reasonable figure for all but a very select few.

It's not 8 hours a day. It's sessions of max 8 hours straight, so people don't stay logged in indefinitely. You can log right back in for another 8 hour session.

 

[Beerfloat]

And people should move away from subscription-based services. Like really.

Game streaming is not for me, but the success of the likes of AWS, Spotify and Office 365 shows that subscription based services seem to offer what some people are looking for.