Nvidia's GeForce Now (GFN), which has been in beta on the PC and Mac, is one of the most eagerly awaited of the cloud-gaming services; moreso than even Google's Project Stream, because we've experienced it firsthand for over a year. Today, the CEO delivered some interesting updates about the status at his keynote for the company's Graphics Technology Conference, notably that it currently has 300,000 users and that there are a million more waiting to be accepted into the beta program.
If you're already in the program, take heart: the company also announced its data center strategy, which includes RTX servers. Those are destined to replace the Tesla P40-based systems currently powering GeForce Now, which should deliver better performance -- higher frame rates! 4K! -- as well as better scalability.
It also announced a software developer's kit for GFN which will enable single sign-on, as well as provide developers with the ability to streamline launchers and installs on the platform. Plus, it's working on wireless cloud-based VR with HTC and 5G infrastructure.
But the company's expansion plans, via its GeForce Now Alliance partnerships, sounds like more than just growing internationally beyond the 15 data centers currently in North America and western Europe. (The first partners are Softbank and LG Uplus for rollouts in Japan and Korea in 2019.)
The way CEO Jensen Huang was talking, it sounded like the company is more interested in enabling and hosting the architecture that will enable other companies to deliver their own, custom GeForce Now-type options. In other words, you'd subscribe via your internet or cell service provider rather than through Nvidia. That would explain why it hasn't already launched, as well.
Just a thought.
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The company touts twelve times the graphics processing power.
By Brandin Tyrrel
Today, Nvidia has revealed a new cloud streaming service called Grid.
Launching in North America alongside the Shield Tablet software update next Tuesday, November 18, Grid allows owners of the Shield Tablet and Shield Portable devices to stream select PC games from Nvidia's launch library. The service will come to Western Europe in December, and Asia next year.
'When you download the new Shield Hub update there will be a new tab there called Grid Games,' said Phil Eisler, general manager of Grid Gaming. 'In addition to playing your Android games, and any local GeForce games, you'll be able to connect to our cloud servers and stream a library of games that we have there.'
Nvidia has handpicked its launch catalog of games to offer something for everyone. Partnering with publishers like Warner Brothers Interactive, the Grid day-one library will include Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Asylum, in addition to Psychonauts, Dead Island, Borderlands, and Borderlands 2 among many more.
'We're going to start with 20 AAA PC games and we're going to be adding games every month,' Eisler said. 'The goal is to get to over 100 next year.'
Initially, Shield owners will be treated to a free preview of the service until June 30, 2015, at which time Nvidia will reevaluate and likely move toward a subscription-based pricing model.
'We're thinking probably along the Netflix line with sort of an affordable subscription fee for a bundle of games,' Eisler said. 'But probably Netflix Plus, because people also want to play brand new content so you'll be able to top up with new titles that have just been launched.'
But more than just a great deal for Shield owners, Grid gaming boasts top-of-line streaming computers in the Grid cloud network, well beyond anything currently available in a cloud streaming service.
During our hands-on demo we were shown side-by-side comparisons of Darksiders 2 booting up at the same time on the Grid Gaming and PlayStation Now streaming services. In that closed environment, the Grid service did finish loading about twice as fast, and the subsequent gameplay was noticeably smoother running at 60Hz, as opposed to the PlayStation equivalent which looked choppy by comparison.
'Compared to the other cloud gaming service out there, PlayStation Now, which is based on the PlayStation 3 chips that Nvidia designed about 10 years ago,' Eisler said, 'in that time we've improved the performance of graphics a lot. So when you connect to Grid, you're connecting to a cloud gaming computer that's twelve times faster.'
'How that manifests itself is that you'll see that the load times of the games are much faster, they're about twice as fast -- about 23 seconds versus 52. And then our frame rate is twice as fast; we're going to stream to you at 60 frames per second which is going to reduce the latency and make it feel like that gaming computer is a console in your living room.'
Of course, as with all streaming services, your mileage may vary depending on your connection and geographic location, though Nvidia is opening up both an eastern and western data center to service the U.S. and Canada. Additional data centers will open to service Western Europe next month, with further centers supporting Asia next year.
And while Nvidia has internally discussed the possibility of extending the Grid streaming service to Nvidia GPU owners at some point in the future, right now the focus is squarely on the Shield family.
'It's a big day for Nvidia, kind of a new chapter for us in bringing a cloud gaming service directly to gamers around the world,' said Eisler. 'It just reinforces that Shield is the best tablet for gamers now that you're going to get the local bundle, the Green Box bundle, plus another 20 games from the cloud that you can stream to your Shield Tablet.'
Brandin Tyrrel is a freelance writer covering games and tech. There's absolutely no reason to follow him on Twitter.
The future landscape of gaming platforms is starting to coalesce, and we're getting a more solid vision of it from announcements made around the annual E3 gaming show. Google offered more of the details for its much-anticipated Stadia service in its pre-E3 press event -- pricing, availability, speed requirements and launch games -- while Microsoft gave us a glimpse of its forthcoming Project xCloud service without any specifics.
These are the emerging cloud-centralized platforms where a lot of the lines bounding the feature sets are nebulous compared to more concrete solutions: consoles like 2020's Xbox and PlayStation coming Microsoft and Sony, Netflix-like mobile gaming subscriptions locked to platforms or carriers such as Apple Arcade and Hatch for Samsung (Hatch also partners with Sprint and NTT Docomo), sling-desktop-games-to-mobile solutions like Steam Link Anywhere and playing your own games hosted in the cloud, such as GeForce Now or Blade Shadow.
What's cloud gaming?
What do we mean when we talk about cloud gaming or game streaming? In cloud gaming, processing occurs on a remote server that 'streams' the rendered frames to your local device, which sends back commands based on your in-game activity.
And if there's an all-you-can-play subscription or streaming component, there are inevitable superficial analogies to Netflix or just slightly more accurately, Apple Arcade. More more apt comparisons are to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. That's because essential gaming features -- cloud saves, in-game communication and play capture, to name a few -- make it fundamentally different from most traditional streaming services.
As does the need for persistence; when your favorite movie is pulled from Netflix (or other movie-streaming service) because copyright-based monetization strategies demand it, you can shrug. If a game you're playing disappears from 'the vault' and the platforms aren't smart, you can lose progress, power-ups, important customizations like keybindings and so on.
People have taken to calling playing games via these services 'game streaming,' but to me that's a far too passive term to describe it, and introduces confusion with Twitch-like streaming; that's why I prefer 'cloud gaming.'
That term also helps differentiate it from in-home streaming -- served up by the original Steam Link, HP's Omen Game Stream, AMD Link mobile and a lot of others -- where you run games off a local system to play on less powerful devices but those devices are still on the same network. They're also different from online multiplayer games such as Fortnite, which run entirely in the cloud but still perform most of the processing on your device.
Many of the problems from a couple of years ago remain. Here are the current players and where they stand.
Microsoft Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass for PC
At E3 2019, Microsoft divulged some high-level details about its forthcoming, Xbox-based cloud-gaming service, slated to go into a public preview launch in October. The goal of Project xCloud is to get Xbox games -- including its own exclusives -- running on more devices, and Microsoft has a three-pronged strategy to make that happen: via an app, xCloud will let you run games hosted on that great Xbox in the sky on your mobile device or to do the same thing for games hosted on your own local Xbox console.
Microsoft has also introduced a new vault subscription plan, Xbox Game Pass PC, to let you run a select group of Xbox games on a Windows PC, analogous to its Xbox Game Pass for the console. Game Pass PC's in beta now at a limited price of $1 for the first month, after which it rises to its normal beta price of $5 per month. One it officially launches, the price will increase to the normal $10 per month. Other perks for Game Pass PC is access to new Microsoft games on launch and discounts on other games.
We still don't know how much Microsoft will charge for xCloud, if or how it will be tied to either of the aforementioned services and next-generation console, requirements for streaming, quality levels..really much of anything.
Google Stadia
The company's gaming ambitions extend into every aspect of game play, game development and game streaming (via YouTube) across every device. But its launch plans as revealed in its most recent E3 announcement, are far less ambitious from a gamer's standpoint and more lucrative from Google's.
But there was little about the unique features that could make it stand out, save its ability to run games on just a few select phones (Pixel 3 series, natch) in its initial incarnation. At the company's official announcement at GDC, the breadth of Stadia's capabilities and Google's vision for it seemed like it encompassed every aspect of gaming, and added important novelties like game buying from videos, indexed walkthroughs and playable scenarios in YouTube. Now it seems so much smaller.
Those plans include a two-tier system debuting in 2020 -- free access for any game you buy from Google and $9.99 monthly Stadia Pro tier, which gives you access to the whole game catalog -- plus a $129 limited Founder's Edition early access bundle that launches in November 2019. Top play quality is 4K/60fps HDR. It will initially be available in 14 countries with a bunch of nonexclusive titles. Excel mac cell reference. As you'd expect, the service is tied to your Google, and there's no sharing until family sharing arrives in some future update.
However, Google's also offering hosting plans to publishers. For instance, Ubisoft's new Uplay Plus subscription will offer cloud-based gaming via Stadia beginning in 2020. It's not clear if Ubisoft's exorbitant $15 per month price will include a Stadia Pro subscription or simply access to Ubisoft's own games.
Publisher partnerships aside, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Google provided a rough outline of bandwidth requirements, but those are insufficient to figure out if your internet connection will be able to play well at any particular quality level.
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Then there are the complete unknowns. That fancy YouTube integration wasn't mentioned. How do you buy games, and how much will they cost?
Can you play games you already own if there's a Stadia equivalent or will you have to repurchase them? If you buy a game on Stadia can you get a version that can run locally? Games need to be coded specifically for the platform. Google's using the popular Unity engine, so at least games already using that have the least friction for porting; Epic has also pushed out the necessary tools for its Unreal Engine. Between the two, that covers a ton of games.
Google mentioned that you could 'transfer' your character from other platforms to Destiny 2 (Destiny 2 will offer cross saves), but that's a bit vague. Plus, how will non-Google controllers work with it?
On one hand, Google has several distinct advantages over any competitor, except maybe Microsoft. It owns a huge network of data centers and the fiber that connects them; the software layers and programming expertise it needs to run; the video-streaming infrastructure streamer base on YouTube to popularize it; a client (Chrome) with a a ready-made installed base; the deep pockets to capitalize it and to create its own games; and the industry clout across mobile and desktops to persuade a critical mass of publishers to develop for it.
Its partnership with AMD for the graphics processors powering the service adds a new wrinkle as well. During the GDC presentation, Google emphasized the powerful physics acceleration of the AMD-based platform; that's a stark contrast to Nvidia's concentration on its RTX ray-tracing-optimized GPUs which will be driving GeForce Now and its need for network scalability highlighted in its keynote.
Blade Shadow
The most advanced cloud gaming option -- and by that I mean a good balance of features and performance -- comes from the smallest company. Blade uses cloud-based virtual machines called Shadows. Once you're logged in, most of the time you can't really tell you're not using a local desktop.
That means it can run any Windows game from anyone, with any launcher -- it's not limited to specific partners. And Blade's ahead of almost all its competitors when it comes to device support. It offers a small $140 box (Shadow Ghost) with Bluetooth and USB ports for keyboards, mice and controllers, and hooks up a TV or monitor to your Shadow; it also has Android, MacOS and Linux apps, while iOS is in beta. It recently rolled out Hive, a community chat and co-op interface lets you view and control other gamers' screens as well as your own.
Unlike all the other platforms, Shadow can run at 4K and 60fps. There's no guarantee your games will run that fast, though. Last time I tested it, the performance was roughly equivalent to an Intel Core i7/GTX GeForce 1070 system -- which isn't nearly powerful enough to run a lot of games at 4K.
The downside is it's not for people who don't want to manage their own computers -- who just want to get in, play, and get out or deal with device connection and latency issues. And at $35 a month it's expensive if all you want to do is play a few games.
Nvidia Shield and GeForce Now
Nvidia'sGeForce Now is probably the slickest and least troublesome cloud-gaming option I've used, in part because it's been around for a while in different forms and in part because it's somewhat limited. The Shield, Nvidia's box for handling connections to peripherals, can connect to a TV or monitor for a console-like gaming experience. The Shield lets you play Android games on the big screen or cloud games via Nvidia's GeForce Now service. GFN lets you play games you own from the cloud.
The notable development for GFN is the ability to play on a Mac or PC. Nvidia's client for doing so has been in free beta for over a year and it works quite well, provided your network lives up to its requirements from minute to minute: Greater than 25Mbps bandwidth, less than 2 percent frame loss and less than 80ms latency.
And on the plus side, Nividia announced its new RTX-based, more highly scalable blade servers at GDC 2019, which it intends to use for upgrading GeForce Now.
But full support is limited to games in your Steam library, on Battle.net or on Uplay, and not all games on those platforms. GFN also runs as a VM, but a locked-down one that launches when choose to run a game (or run the Steam client) and evaporates when you exit.
Plus, it shows no signs of actually turning into a real service. Though the beta is public, it's still invitation-only. We haven't had any hints of iOS or Android support. Nvidia has yet to say when it will go into public release or reveal any pricing.
Sony PlayStation Now and PS4 Remote Play
If there's an oldtimer in cloud gaming, it's probably the 5-year-old PSN. The service, which is fundamentally an all-you-can-eat subscription (charging $20 per month to $100 per year) for PlayStation owners, has lets you stream PS games to a PC for the last three years.
While it's robust with a big library of games, those games rotate so you're not always guaranteed to be able to play the ones you're looking forward to. Also, Windows is the only platform it supports for cloud gaming, it's only designed to work with a DualShock controller and it (unsurprisingly) doesn't support keyboard and mouse.
With the PS4, Sony introduced a feature called 'Remote Play,' which lets your PS4 stream games to a PC, Mac, Android, and as of March 2019, iOS. Like Stream Link Anywhere, Remote Play uses the console as a host that you can access via other devices without having to be on the same network.
Sony's alluded to some of internals for its upcoming console as well as Sony's intent to allow for 'cross generation' play (no mention of cross-platform play yet). And it's possible that with the next rev the company will introduce the ability to stream games you own -- and to more devices -- directly via the PSN infrastructure. So you wouldn't need a console but you'd be able to access hot new exclusives.
Steam Link Anywhere
Steam Link started out as a box (like the Shield) which connects to a TV or monitor via Steam's in-home streaming service. So there's still a powerful system running the game, but you didn't have to be in front of it. Parent company Valve discontinued the Steam Link and replaced it with an app to let you stream to your Android device, which is still in beta. There was initially an iOS app but after some problems with Apple's App Store it just disappeared and we haven't heard anything since.
Steam announced an update, Steam Link Anywhere, just prior to GDC 2019. The update untethers Steam Link from having to be on the same network as the computer hosting the stream. It's still new and a little rough. For instance, when I try to connect from home, it asks me to enter a PIN on the host computer at the office. And when I try to leave the host on Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet, it's always offline when I try to connect from home. Then I get to the office and find Steam has logged me out.
Steam Link Anywhere is very much a work in progress. It's free, which is a plus. But you need a pretty meaty system to serve as the host, with a fast, robust and preferably wired network connection.
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The promise of cloud gaming holds clear appeal. High-end gaming on any Internet-connected PC, even crappy old laptops that couldn’t dream of running games normally? Yes please!
But the reality has been much more disappointing. Forebears like OnLive and Gaikai are remembered more for their bugginess and lag than genuine gaming goodness. The small horde of cloud gaming services popping up over the last couple of years likewise struggle with reliability issues.
Nvidia’s GeForce Now game streaming could be the real deal.
The GeForce Now beta finally landed on PCs in late January, and it’s the first cloud gaming service I’ve used that doesn’t require major compromises on a regular basis. Hell, it actively takes a lot of the headaches out of maintaining a gaming rig. If your network can handle it—and even my humble 25Mbps Comcast home Internet connection could—and you can wrap your brain around some weird interface quirks, you’ll be pulling off headshots and executing other precision moves in-game in no time.
And better yet, you’ll be doing it at no cost whatsoever for the duration of the beta period. In an era of hyper-inflated graphics card prices, the GeForce Now beta may be just the lifeline gamers have been waiting for. Let’s dig into Nvidia’s cloud gaming service.
GeForce Now system requirements
Before you can dive in, you’ll need to get in. There’s a wait list for the service while it’s in closed beta. Nvidia hasn’t said when GeForce Now will fully launch. Register and wait for a spot to open.
GeForce Now works even on modest CPUs
Because GeForce Now behaves similarly to Netflix—the games are run on Nvidia servers and streamed to your PC—the system requirements are minimal. You’ll need a Core i3 processor clocked at 3.1GHz or higher (or a comparable AMD chip), 4GB of system memory, and graphics that can run DirectX 9. Many chips released over the past decade check those boxes. The GeForce Now executable is only 54.6MB in size, though the final product consumes a hair over 2GB in total on my system. A Mac client is also available.
Your network will probably be the biggest hurdle. GeForce Now requires a 25Mbps connection, and recommends 50Mbps or higher. Nvidia says you’ll need to use hardwired ethernet or a 5GHz Wi-Fi connection as well—a typical 2.4GHz connection won’t cut it. GeForce Now tests your connection strength and won’t let you run games if your network isn’t up to snuff.
The tester also measures your latency to Nvidia’s servers, and what percentage of frames are lost in transit, though the frame loss measurement acted weird in my testing. It said that almost 80 percent of frames were lost on a PC wired directly into my Comcast modem/router combo, even though dropped frames has never been an issue for me. Fortunately, it still allowed me to use GeForce Now, and games ran smoothly through the service.
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Most gaming mice and gaming keyboards work out of the box with GeForce Now. I tried a couple of different headsets (one digital, one analog) and a pair of speakers on my desktop; all functioned as expected. Microphones worked like a charm, too. Controller support is a bit more limited, with only the Sony DualShock 4, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 controller (not Xbox One), and Logitech’s Gamepad F310/F510/F710 supported. It didn’t bother me much, because the Xbox 360 controller is still the greatest gamepad ever made.
GeForce Now supported gamesNvidia Gaming Streaming Servixes Laptop
Here’s where things get a little thorny. The first mental roadblock you’ll need to navigate around is the name itself.
GeForce Now has been available for years on Nvidia’s sublime Shield hardware. GeForce Now for PCs and Macs sports the same name, but it’s a different beast entirely. PCWorld’s GeForce Now vs. GeForce Now break-down gets into the nitty-gritty details but basically, GeForce Now for Shield is like Netflix for games. You pay $8 per month and can stream a selection of games as much as you want.
GeForce Now for PCs and Macs instead grants you access to a virtual gaming PC on Nvidia servers, where you can install and run games you already own from Steam, Uplay, and Blizzard’s Battle.net. Fortnite and League of Legends can also be played. (Support for Origin and GOG games was mentioned in the original GeForce Now announcement, but they haven’t appeared in the client yet.) The PC service doesn’t let you play any games you haven’t already obtained though supported storefronts, but storage is unlimited via GeForce Now. Install all the games you want.
After installing GeForce Now and logging into (or creating) your Nvidia account, you’re dumped into a clean but disorienting interface. The GeForce Now homescreen features a gigantic, scrolling list of games, separated by genre and other classifications. It also includes games you don’t own. Selecting a game boots you into its storefront, where you’re able to install it (or given the option to purchase the game) after logging into your account for that platform. It was much easier for me to find my games by using the search interface in the toolbar.
Using the search feature reveals another quirk: A lot of games are missing from the GeForce Now library, even though the service can run any game from Steam. That’s because only about 150 games are officially supported, including most of the heavy hitters you’d expect like Dota 2, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike Global Offensive, Witcher 3, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Skyrim, and more. Only supported games appear in searches or the GeForce Now homescreen.
“These are games that we’ve tested and include support for quick install, persistent saves (game save data will persist from session to session), cloud saves (if the individual game supports it), and quick launches following the initial game session,” Nvidia’s Jordan Dodge tells me.
After you install a supported game in GeForce Now, it’ll permanently appear in your Library tab, making it much faster to find it in the future. The homescreen interface would be vastly more helpful if it included the ability to sort through all supported games in alphabetical order, especially since you already need to own them to play them.
But you can coax non-supported Steam games into working too, though GeForce Now doesn’t make it obvious. If you want to install non-supported Steam games, simply click the arrow to the right of your user name in GeForce Now’s upper-right corner, then click the Manage Steam option. The Steam interface appears, and you can use it to navigate to your library and manually install the game of your choice.
“Most [unsupported games] should just work,” Dodge says.“However, the game may take a while to install, your progress will not be saved, there will be no optimal playable settings, and you will need to reinstall the game the next time you run Steam.”
Nvidia Gaming Streaming Servixes Free
That’s all true, but if your game of choice supports Steam Cloud saves, it doesn’t matter that Nvidia doesn’t save your progress through GeForce Now. The initial install on supported games is astonishingly fast, taking mere seconds. Nvidia’s connection blasts through unsupported games at a blistering rate too, though, as you can see in the image above. Downloading XCOM: Enemy Unknown’s 9.2GB only took a couple of minutes. You’ll need to repeat the process whenever you want to play an unsupported game, though, and unsupported games never appear in your GeForce Now library for quick access.
The lackluster main interface and the way Nvidia hides non-supported Steam games are my biggest gripes with GeForce Now, but those are the sort of things that can be fixed quickly. I have no complaints about the core GeForce Now experience—actually playing games.
Nvidia Gaming Streaming Services 2017
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