After quite some time cooking in a development oven, Nvidia has finally released their game-streaming service to everyone. They call it GeForce Now and is an already fairly proven competitor to other streaming services such as Google Stadia and Microsoft's upcoming Project xCloud.
While Stadia relies more on a Google curated list of games and xCloud is mainly focused on Xbox titles, GeForce Now attempts to let you stream just about any PC game that you want. You can play your library on nearly any PC, MacOS device, or Android device.
Unlike the other two services, GeForce Now isn't necessarily trying to sell you new games through a storefront. Instead, it allows you to log into your existing accounts to access your libraries. Right now, GeForce Now supports most major storefronts such as Steam, GoG, Epic Games Store, and most every other one you can think of.
The service has been in development in some form since at least 2013. A few years back, the beta was made available through Nvidia's own portable device, the Nvidia Shield. It then moved on to supporting a larger number of platforms including PC, Mac, and Android.
The good news with today's launch is that there is a totally free version that you can use right now. The catch with the free version is that you can only play for an hour at a time. There is also the very real possibility that you are stuck in a queue waiting for a spot to open up to play. If you don't want to deal with that hassle, you can jump up to the Founder tier.
The Founder tier is just $5 (USD) a month and allows you to play for up to six hours straight. They even have a free 90-day trial to test out the Founder tier before they start billing you. Unlike the free tier, Founders get priority when it comes to those queues, meaning that wait times to play should be next to non-existent. Interestingly, unlike with the free tier, the Founder tier allows you to play with RTX on in games that support it. I will note here that the $5/month offering is a "limited time offer." However, they do not seem to indicate when this offer will end nor does it say what the price will increase to.
Both the free version and the paid Founders version will let you play your games at 1080p and 60fps. You will need a decent connection for the service regardless of which tier you decide to try. Nvidia recommends 15Mbps for 720p at 60fps, and at least 25Mbps for 1080p at 60fps. They also say that you will need either a hardwired connection directly to your router or a 5GHz wireless router. That 2.4GHz garbage won't cut it here.
On the PC hardware side, you need at least a dual core CPU at 2GHz or more, 4GB of memory, and a GPU that supports DirectX 11.
GeForce Now also supports a number of peripherals including Xbox 360 controllers, Xbox One controllers, DualShock 4 controllers, and a handful of other devices from Razer, Logitech, Steelseries, and more depending on which platform you choose to play on.
