NVIDIA GeForce Now

While not really a thing two or three years ago, game streaming services are now a reality. Better yet, they've been getting a lot of attention recently, and for good reason.

After numerous launch delays, and despite hitting the streets months after its main three competitors (Google Stadia, XBOX Game Pass Ultimate, and Sony PlayStation Now, NVIDIA GeForce Now is finally available for everyone in over 80 countries.

In short, it's a cloud-based game streaming service. It delivers real-time gameplay straight from the cloud to almost any device (desktop PC, laptop, Mac, Shield TV, and Android phones and tablets - iOS not supported).

This makes it ideal for gamers who want to take their gaming sessions on the go, for those who want to play games on unsupported devices by default, or simply those who don't have enough reasons or money to buy a state-of-the-art gaming rig just to enjoy a resource-intensive game here and there.

For starters, we have to point out that, unlike in Google Stadia's case, NVIDIA GeForce Now requires you to own or purchase the games you want to play.

There is, however, a silver lining as you can also take advantage of over 75 of the most popular free-to-play titles currently on the market (League of Legends, Fortnite, Rocket League, Warframe, CS:GO, World of Tanks, Dota 2, Paladins, etc.)

A full list of all supported games can be found here.

To get started, create a new or log into an existing NVIDIA account, download the app for your respective device, and link your game library (visit the Settings section for this task). You can add games to your library from different platforms such as Steam, Origin, Ubisoft Connect, and Epic Games.

After your accounts and games are synced, you can start playing. The whole process is quite hands-off since the service will choose an appropriate server and the streaming quality automatically.

Of course, the app allows you to customize the performance and data usage according to your needs (find the Streaming Quality section in the Settings menu).

NVIDIA GeForce Now has two tiers: Free and Founders Membership. The free tier allows you to play for short periods of time (one-hour increments), while the Founder's membership offers 6 hours of uninterrupted gameplay.

Regardless of your plan, you'll have to relaunch the game after the designated time expires. The Founders comes with other advantages as well which include RTX ray-tracing acceleration for games that support it, and something called "priority access" - the ability to get ahead in the waiting line for an available NVIDIA cloud gaming rig.

Even though the concept behind the service and the overall quality of the service is top tier, one area where  GeForce Now falls somewhat short is the GUI.

While there's nothing particularly wrong with the way it looks, the GUI seems a bit on the conservative side of things. We'll just say that it seems to borrow a lot of elements from Steam's GUI, which, as most gamers will tell you, is somewhat outdated both in terms of design and functionality.

Then there's the library integration aspect. To integrate your library, you'll have to swap between the app and your computer's default browser. Even though we didn't encounter a lot of problems along the way, the whole process seems a bit slow, and somewhat awkward.

As one can imagine, the most important aspect while using this app is your Internet connection. As far as the streaming quality is concerned, the platform supports 1080p 60 FPS and a bitrate of up to 50 Mbps. It may not have support for 4K, but 1080p should be enough for the large majority of gamers out there.

Simply put, if your Internet connection is good or really good, then you'll have a wonderful experience, nearly indistinguishable from playing a game installed on your machine.

Conversely, if your Internet connection is not particularly fast, then you can pretty much expect the worst to happen: laggy games, glitchy streaming quality, and generally high latency. Nevertheless, even though it's possible to play competitive and fast-paced multiplayer titles, GeForce Now is a lot more geared towards single-player, and generally slower-paced games.

Once you start a game, you can access various interesting features aimed to make your gaming experience a bit better. Press CTRL+G to bring up NVIDIA GeForce Now's in-game menu.

You can record notable gaming moments, take instant screenshots, apply filters, and tweak various microphone, notification, and shortcut controls-related settings.

The short answer is: "Yes, surprisingly good." There are a lot of good things that GeForce Now brings to the table. And, despite the fact that it's not perfect, most of its drawbacks will most likely be brought to light by the consistency (or lack of) of your Internet connection and not the hardware involved.

To recap, you can play pretty much any recent game (if it's supported) at 1080p with next to no lag provided you have a top-tier, fast Internet connection.

The service itself features no hidden costs, it's generally accessible, and you can synchronize your entire Steam library. The pricing plans are fair and NVIDIA GeForce Now is the only platform of its kind that offers a Free tier, which should incentivize more gamers (and maybe even soon-to-become gamers) to give it a go.

Be that as it may, realistically speaking, if you plan on using the platform on a daily basis, a Founders membership is a must.