Is PC Cloud Gaming Any Good? A GeForce NOW Review

[@TechOverwrite]

Hey everyone, just a note that GeForce NOW are introducing a monthly usage cap for the service 😭 I discuss this here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ooTSoaCMi6ZlgLs

[@jjayala]

Been using it a few years. The improvements along the way are crazy. Im just a dude who got sober at 31 and fell in love with games again. Crazy job, crazy kids, its nice to be able to just bring my tablet, or retro handheld out and stream cyberpunk, or just try out something like the last descendant with no download wait. I love physical hardware and gaming set ups but i am often on the go or gaming in bed or while watching the kids. I love it.

[@TechOverwrite]

Congrats on getting sober and rediscovering your love of gaming 🙂 I have a young family too (5 and 3 years old) so don't game as much as I'd like, but I always enjoy gaming when I get a chance lol. And thanks for the comment, that's great to know that the service has improved a fair amount in recent years. It does seem fairly solid tbf, especially at the Ultimate tier.

[@WhoButBilly]

Salute, sober 4 years now also back at it 💯

[@redrunn3388]

This is hands down the best review i've seen on Geforce now. Not only do you test different setups but also make the information easy to understand and straight to the point. Thx man subbed for sure.

[@TechOverwrite]

I appreciate all that, many thanks for saying it - and for the sub too 🙂

[@belizarius_997]

Mac user here. I started my Geforce Now paid subscription at the Cyberpunk launch because this game was unplayable on my PS4. I changed my subscription to Founders and have been paying for it since. My Geforce Now pros: 1. Four quid (yes, 4GBP) per month for RTX class gaming rig with the option to upgrade to 4080 any time I want or downgrade the rig or cancel my sub whenever I want 2. I can play huge AAA titles on my Mac so no need for a fully-fledged gaming PC. 3. Steam\Gamepass compatible so games stay in my library and no need to repurchase them should I decide to go back to Windows. 4. No need to install huge games on my computer, everything runs from the cloud. Three things NVIDIA could improve: 1. Mouse glitch in some games - yes seriously, four years in - it is still unresolved! 2. Multiple login screens just to get into the game - absolutely infuriating! 3. A lot of games, esp. from smaller publishers are missing. I don't know the tech requirements behind it, but the world of gaming no longer revolves around AAA titles. In short: yes, it's worth it if you play big, popular resource-heavy titles. If you like smaller publishers and/or indie games my advice would be to stay away.

[@TechOverwrite]

That's really interesting, thanks for the detailed comment and summing up years of your experience 😊 It's definitely frustrating that smaller games aren't supported better I agree - it doesn't seem like GFN need to do much extra work to support them either, so it's a pity. And LOL re the mouse comment - I thought it was just me at first. It's an annoying issue and I wish they could make it more stable. 😬

[@scvete78]

I was always curious about this service, thanks for the summary.

[@TechOverwrite]

No worries, thanks for the comment and I'm glad you enjoyed the review. 🙂

[@TechOverwrite]

Hey everyone, have you considered cloud gaming? I was pleasantly surprised by it actually, even though I have a perfectly good gaming PC (with a 5900X and RX 6700XT GPU). 😊

[@OsvaldoBrites]

@TechOverwrite can one install mods to games (AC - like cars, tracks, apps) and be able to run it all and stream!?

[@kurthirsch4529]

Hey great review! Thanks for being comprehensive and not just an advertisement.

[@TechOverwrite]

Glad you enjoyed, I like diving deep into these things for sure 😊

[@Mermete8]

No modding, VR or emulation support so it's not for all use cases. But for flatscreen AAA PC gaming on an old laptop or a 4K TV it's great

[@TechOverwrite]

That's fair, and yes I agree it's ideal for more casual gaming - it's a pity that 'extras' aren't supported (not that VR or mods should be considered extras though) 🙂

[@caseball-uk386]

Cloud gaming is THE future of gaming .. Boosteroid Ultra and GFN Ultimate are lightyears ahead of the game.

[@TechOverwrite]

Yes I agree - the services seem really stable from a latency perspective, probably helped by people's home internet being more reliable than the past too (thanks to higher quality routers and mesh WiFi systems). It does seem like a tipping point has been reached for cloud gaming 🙂

[@caseball-uk386]

@@TechOverwrite Google Stadia was a proof of concept that worked well but the new Ultra/Ultimate tiers are street ahead of anything else. Really think Xbox next gen hardware will be a low level pc/cloud mashup. Example... a £150 2nd hand pc from eBay allows you to play at 4k120 on GFN, it is comparable to a £4000 4080 pc... Absolutely crazy and yet people still laugh at Cloud gaming. Latency checks by Nvidia show that with reflex on and using their Ultimate tier, it was faster than a locally wired Xbox....

[@TechOverwrite]

That's really interesting, I hadn't realised re NVIDIA'S testing showing that it's faster than a wired setup. That's awesome 🙂 Yes I could definitely see Microsoft rolling out a cloud based Xbox - it could be priced quite low and come with 1 year's cloud gaming subscription to hook people in.

[@caseball-uk386]

@@TechOverwrite Amazon fire stick and GamePass 😉

[@joKerchy]

No it’s not

[@hvdiv17]

its like renting a $2000 pc for $240 a year in 2 years that will be $480 and by that time it mite update to a rtx 5080. if you have the internet connection and dont want to pay the $2k for the pc isnt a bad option.

[@TechOverwrite]

That's a great comparison, and I agree - that's how I am looking at cloud gaming nowadays. I genuinely can't see myself being a top end GPU anymore.

[@MJ-mk8jg]

I enjoy building my retro pc's but this is tempting should I ever find a new game that I want to play.

[@TechOverwrite]

That's a good use case for cloud gaming for sure, it is nice to know that playing the very latest games can be possible even on more retro builds.

[@christophperktold1824]

Great vid! I got lots of info! It was very informative! I love your soothing voice!

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks man, I appreciate that :) Glad you found this useful.

[@renatodbaoncall94]

super review - thank you

[@TechOverwrite]

Thank you, I'm glad that you liked it :)

[@bugoiclaudiu1233]

finished a ton if games on GFN ultimate, have the service since day one

[@TechOverwrite]

That's great, always nice to see an early adopter 🙂 Out of interest, has the service always been fairly stable and low-latency at Ultimate tier?

[@bugoiclaudiu1233]

@@TechOverwrite tbh for me it was, I faced more problems in issues related to bugs that were from the game's launcher side

[@I_LuvMaxwell]

My experience with geforce now is great... if you pay for the upgrades. The free one is only worth it if you have nothing to do and you're at for example something like school. I wasn't able to check if you're able to switch what type of streaming you can choose before buying ultimate. the options were, balanced which makes the quality better, but the delay is bigger or competitive, which when using in cs;go I could barely notice and delay and play as normal. for 20$ a month to play games I love at 4k 240 fps it was a great deal and with Ethernet, it's a seamless experience.

[@TechOverwrite]

Yes I agree entirely, the free version isn't a great advert for the service really. I was blown away with Ultimate though, it was great 🙂 Good point about Ethernet too.

[@MichaelPiraino]

Great review. You should do a history of cloud gaming, specifically highlighting what had been the most successful service that was unfortunately way ahead of its time, Onlive. The internet infrastructure just wasn't there like it is today. I wonder if Geforce Now will ever take any of its cool features, like watching other people play on the service. Would also be great if GeForce Now rented out a "cloud hard drive" for mods and local game saves. I was thinking of getting it for stellaris, but not having access to my vast number of custom empires to populate my galaxies would be a huge let down.

[@TechOverwrite]

Many thanks, glad you liked it and that's a great suggestion 🙂 I'd definitely like if GeForce Now offered cloud storage for sure, it seems like it'd be 'easy' for them to offer this (and result in major benefits for us), but who knows 🤔

[@FakeKurgerBing]

for people wondering GeForce NOW will only allow you to play games with cloud saving hence why some games like dark souls and geometry dash wont be found on there

[@TechOverwrite]

Ahh good point, thanks for mentioning this 👍

[@adaptivehackerkhan]

So you basically rent a cloud computer and need to get your games as you normally would?

[@TechOverwrite]

Yes that's pretty much correct :) However you don't have storage access, meaning that mods are (often) not allowed - unfortunately.

[@adaptivehackerkhan]

@@TechOverwrite Wonder if you can play games shared with you through Steam Family sharing? I mean with your Geforce Now subscription.

[@TechOverwrite]

Ooo good question, I don't know actually - I'll test it out if I'm able to sometime.

[@Joe-ij6of]

how is playing multiplayer games online? MMOs? Twitchy/competitive like CS2? RTS? I'd be interested in playing AOE4 over it, but it's networking/syncing protocol ALREADY introduces a lag... my hope is that nvidia servers would reduce this lag and offset the slight increase in lag between my kb/mouse and the nvidia server... so maybe it's okay?

[@TechOverwrite]

Good question - I tested out a small amount of multiplayer games through GFN and it seemed fine (pings/latencies were pretty good) - however I didn't try any twitchy type FPSes etc). Hopefully others can chime in if they regularly play competitive multiplayers on GFN? Overall it does seem really solid though - I was surprised at how good the networking was.

[@marthvader14]

Thanks for the good review

[@TechOverwrite]

Glad you liked it :)

[@adrian_veidt]

Maybe they can hire other people with beefy setup so you can hook up to it via cloud. Reducing the waiting time

[@TechOverwrite]

That would be awesome actually - there's probably plenty of people who would happily rent out their PCs while they're busy or AFK 🙂

[@JuanSinMiedo441]

GFN + Game Pass on Steam Deck is a nightmare 😢

[@TechOverwrite]

Ugh TIL - that's a pity. That would have been a really powerful combo 😞

[@maxpanicked1451]

Good Review. Thanks

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks for watching! 🙂

[@xrkdino2393]

If my monitor isn’t 4k would the display be 4k? And is it the same with fps

[@TechOverwrite]

You can go above your monitor's settings yes - so if you had a 1440p monitor, you could still choose 4k graphics in GFN and the service will just downscale things. This is actually a good approach to get extra sharp graphics and view areas 🙂

[@Asadc1995]

Hey there fellow cloud gaming brother. I have the priority tier. I would rather imo pay netflix prices playing over time newer titles without burning a fortune. But i clearly remember it 4 years ago vs now were it has become alot more stable. One of the biggest misconceptions about cloud gaming is that it is always ones own internet connection that is the main issue. Not always sometimes it is from the server data center end the problem is. As you mention ethernet wired connection 7:27 as i tried other cloud gaming platforms boosteroid wired connection were it was alot laggy sometimes almost like a diasshow. Other times on wifi just fine. The same with geforce now sometimes 5g tethering on my old laptop with my 5g phone very stable. Even though it was lower speed connection 135mbps

[@TechOverwrite]

Hey cloud gaming brother ☺️ Yes I completely agree with your comment, and that's a fair point re it isn't always our own internet. I'm so used to blaming my own that I forgot to mention the server side issue instead lol. Definitely a good point though 🙂

[@Asadc1995]

@TheScepticalThinker1 Your phone telecom providers plays a role too. Yeah as i said sometimes it actually is ones own connection sometimes even with stable connection like ethernet wired it is from the server data center end the problem actually is. But dont know what country you live at? Be sure to have a 5g telecom service provider that has SA 5g and not NSA 5g = Standalone 5G meaning full pure 5G signal and not partwise 5g mixed with 4g signal those cheaper telecom service providers. Like for example here in denmark it kinda pays off to have yousee one of those little bit kinda expensive providers. Which supports standalone 5G because on other providers i kinda not just buffer lag latency also input was very noticable. But thats just from my own experience. I can actually on my 12 year old thinkpad t430i tethered to my motorola 5G phone play with very minimal latency most of the time even very little almost no input lag. But your phone 5g telecom service providers does plays a role too! Yeah sometimes on wired fixed broadband as mentioned sometimes it is from the server data center end the problem is. Other times it is ones own connection

[@Asadc1995]

@TheScepticalThinker1 full lay pure 5g standalone 5G or non standalone 5G = 5G mixed with 4G signal?

[@Asadc1995]

@TheScepticalThinker1 it kinda plays a role in cloud gaming! Because watching videos movies series of even music dont use that much high amounts of bandwidth that cloud gaming does

[@TommeeKnocker]

I have 150mb speed on tablet and free tier running great but suddenly it will freeze for a second or in the case of a driving game freeze then fast forward , I wonder if paid will help these freezes?

[@TechOverwrite]

Hmm that's frustrating. It's hard to say for sure whether upgrading will help - it could equally be a temporary WiFi blip on the tablet or router. But yes, the GFN networking is better on the paid plans so if your WiFi is rock solid, upgrading the plan may help 🙂

[@TommeeKnocker]

@@TechOverwrite I have upgraded but it was still happening , changed router and the driving game was fixed, Evil West on gamepass is running at 60 frames at around 10 ping but keeps almost pausing during special effects.

[@TechOverwrite]

Hmm sorry to hear you're still having some issues, that's frustrating. Sounds like a mix of different issues then 😔 Maybe GFN support can help. At least now you've ruled out the router as a cause too.

[@kirbyfairbanks4766]

Works great on my shield

[@TechOverwrite]

That's good to know, the shield looks like a nifty device - glad that GFN works well on it 🙂

[@andreasaust1510]

That you cannot use mods is a big one though

[@TechOverwrite]

Yes true, it's a pretty big flaw. Some games do kinda support them, but it's still nowhere near a 'standard' PC gaming experience.

[@Whoshotmyrifle]

I cared about that too then I realised I never in my life modded a game cause I don't care about mods in the end lol

[@hakki686]

get a 4k 144hz monitor and you will be much more happier running 4k 120 fps :)

[@TechOverwrite]

@@hakki686 fair 🙂 That is on my wishlist but right now I'm doing more 4k video editing (at 30fps) than gaming 😭 I do hope to do more gaming soon though, and a 144hz display would be sweet for sure - you're right 👍

[@BaronOfHell666]

Good review. However, are you a robot? You sound like a robot, a nice robot mind you. Not one of those kill all humans robots. I'm not racist against robots. I just want to know if the review I'm watching is from a human or robot. Robots can process info a lot faster than a human so the review might not apply as much to me. I am a human by the way. I dated a robot once. Didn't work out. We just couldn't connect. I tried but you can't just put anything into a usb c port and that is all she had. I think I might have hurt myself. Anyway nice review robot man.

[@TechOverwrite]

LOL thanks for the comment, human man. Am I robot? Well I checked my internal chips, and they said... 0100111001101111001000000100100100100000011000010110110100100000011001000110010101100110011010010110111001101001011101000110010101101100011110010010000001101110011011110111010000100000011000010010000001110010011011110110001001101111011101000010111000100000010010010010000001100001011011010010000001001000011101010110110101100001011011100010111000100000010100000110110001100101011000010111001101100101001000000111001101110100011011110111000000100000011000010111001101101011011010010110111001100111001000000110111101110010001000000111011101101111011011100110010001100101011100100110100101101110011001110010000001100001011011100111100100100000011001100111010101110010011101000110100001100101011100100010110000100000010011110111001000100000010001010110110001110011011001010010000001010111011001010010000001010111011010010110110001101100001000000100010001100101011001100110010101101110011001000010000001001111011101010111001001110011011001010110110001110110011001010111001100101110

[@ZM-dm3jg]

He's using AI

[@tronosphere]

for anyone watchin u can play skyrim w mods

[@TechOverwrite]

That's great to hear then, do you know if/when support for that was added? 🤔

[@tronosphere]

@@TechOverwrite its their in game modding thing not anything because of geforce, basically all their major mods are on it(i know because i spent year modding via nexus), similar situation for fallout and starfield

[@maynardcortes1493]

only play dota 2, this is good enough for me

[@TechOverwrite]

@@maynardcortes1493 it depends on what plan you have, but yes, the paid for GFN packages should have good enough pings/latencies for Dota 2 IMO 🙂

[@evermark27]

BUT

[@INKf3KT]

Chocolate rain guy

[@TechOverwrite]

🤣🤣