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Title: NVIDIA's GeForce Now with RTX 5080 GPUs is a cloud gaming revelation

Link: https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-geforce-now-...

If you had told me five years ago that playing PC games over the cloud would
soon look indistinguishable from using a powerful rig, I would have called
you a fool. But after diving into NVIDIA's new RTX 5080-powered GeForce Now
servers for several hours, I think we've reached a major milestone for cloud
streaming. From a New Jersey server almost a thousand miles away from my
Atlanta-area home, I was able to play Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K at 170 fps (with
NVIDIA's DLSS 4 frame generation) and Overwatch 2 at a blistering fast 360
fps in 1080p. I genuinely couldn't tell the difference between this souped-up
GeForce Now server and my own RTX 5090-powered desktop.

That got me thinking: What's the point of investing thousands in a desktop
when cloud streaming can look this good for $20 a month? That's the price for
GeForce Now's top-end Ultimate plan, which is required to use the RTX 5080
servers. And if you don't need that level of power, you can also get a pretty
solid gaming experience with the $10 Performance plan, which is restricted to
1,440p/60 fps at best.

Cyberpunk 2077 on GeForce NowDevindra Hardawar for Engadget

During my testing, I was constantly astounded by how sharp every game looked.
The neon lights and reflective surfaces of Cyberpunk's Night City lit up my
Alienware OLED monitor. A few minutes into my first session, I completely
forgot I was streaming the game. There were none of the video compression
artifacts or occasional stuttering I've seen on other streaming services.
Hell, I was even able to rip through several Overwatch 2 matches without
noticing much lag. I only noticed a bit of latency when I turned on multi-
frame generation while playing Cyberpunk in 4K ΓÇö that pushed my frame rate
up to 160 fps from 70 fps, but those interpolated frames made everything feel
more sluggish.

We've clearly come a long way from Microsoft and Sony's foray into game
streaming for consoles. I've used Xbox offering on and off over the years,
and while it's typically been easy to use, it always felt a bit low-res (it
tops out at 1080p/60 fps) and filled with blotchy video compression. Even
today, it's obvious you're getting a second-rate experience. Sony's streaming
for PS Plus Premium subscribers can now reach up to an admirable 4K/60 fps
for some PS5 titles, and it also turned the PlayStation Portal into a more
viable handheld. But Sony's cloud gaming seems more useful for letting you
play older PS3 games, instead of giving you a complete gaming experience
untethered from its core console business.

Overwatch 2 on GeForce NowDevindra Hardawar for Engadget

GeForce Now has always had a technological advantage over the competition, as
it's easy for NVIDIA to stuff servers full of high-end GPUs. But it's lagged
behind a bit when it comes to usability, since playing games involves
connecting to your accounts on storefronts like Steam, followed by
downloading and installing those titles in a remote connection window. It's
not as easy as hitting a button on the Xbox Windows app. GeForce Now is
clearly aimed at PC gamers who already have large collections of games and
are used to suffering through the indignities of Steam's interface.

For those players, NVIDIA's latest upgrades have turned GeForce Now from a
"nice to have" service to something that could be essential. There's the raw
power inherent in the leap to RTX 5080-level GPUs, which leads to higher
frame rates and the ability to lean into demanding features like ray tracing.
The actual "Blackwell" GPU hardware NVIDIA is using in its servers also
sports a whopping 48GB of VRAM, a major leap from the 16GB of VRAM the
consumer-grade RTX 5080 cards are stuck with. Technically, you could see
better performance in GeForce Now compared to running a 5080 locally.

NVIDIA has also bumped its resolution and frame rate limits up to 5K/120 fps
(which is currently only supported by one LG monitor), 4K/240 fps and
1080p/320 fps. That covers the gamut of people who want the highest quality
possible, to those who demand the most frames for fast-paced shooters.

And in an effort to make cloud gaming look a bit less like you're just
streaming video, NVIDIA has also developed "Cinematic Quality Streaming"
features, including support for better color depth with 4:4:4 chroma
subsampling. There are also "AI-powered" video filters to help make text
clear, as well as support for AV1 encoders for efficient streaming that can
adapt to network changes.

If youΓÇÖre stuck with an aging video card, it may make more sense to
subscribe to GeForce Now Ultimate for $20 a month, instead of shelling out
$1,200 or more for a genuine RTX 5080.

As usual for cloud streaming, though, the Achilles heel of GeForce Now is its
exorbitant bandwidth demands. NVIDIA bumped up its maximum video bitrate to
100Mbps, which can add up to 45GB of bandwidth over an hour. You'll need a
beefy internet connection to stream games without slowing down the internet
for everyone else in your home, and you can just give up on the idea entirely
if you're restricted by bandwidth caps. If you've been thinking of an excuse
to upgrade to an uncapped gigabit internet connection, this is it.

Streaming Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K consumed 29.5GB over an hour of gameplay.
GeForce Now hovered between 60Mbps and 80Mbps for most of the session, but it
occasionally peaked to 100Mbps. I've got a reliable AT&T fiber connection in
the suburbs, but I'd definitely be worried if I was still using a finicky
cable internet in Brooklyn, where the overall bandwidth is shared with
everyone on your cable node. A single GeForce Now session could take down
internet speeds for your entire block, or you could find yourself without
enough bandwidth to play smoothly during peak usage.

ItΓÇÖs also worth noting that GeForce Now also doesnΓÇÖt support every PC
game out there. You can access more than 4,000 recent titles, but you may run
into issues trying to find obscure older games. NVIDIA is expanding its
streaming library a bit with a new ΓÇ£Install to PlayΓÇ¥ feature, which lets
you install some games in persistent cloud storage. I was able to set up and
play 1000xResist without any trouble, and IΓÇÖm hoping more indie titles will
be added eventually.

The need for killer bandwidth and the reality of shoddy internet
infrastructure are the biggest issues holding cloud gaming back from truly
replacing local play. If my normally stable internet goes down, that means no
gaming at all. And the same is true if NVIDIAΓÇÖs servers get slammed. For
most people, picking up a console or gaming PC will simply be more reliable.

Even with those caveats, GeForce Now still makes a compelling case for gaming
away from your main rig. Perhaps youΓÇÖre itching to put a dent in your Steam
library while on vacation, or you just want to keep playing Mafia: The Old
Country on your couch. ItΓÇÖs all possible, as long as your internet holds
up.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-geforce-now-...
gaming-revelation-130000231.html?src=rss

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