Yesterday marked the three-year anniversary of the launch of GeForce Now (since it came out of its beta phase), a cloud gaming service that, at the beginning, raised some doubts, but that over time has managed to become the best option within its category.
I speak with knowledge of the facts, since I have been able to test it in its different modalities, and the truth is that the launch of GeForce Now RTX 4080 managed to impress meespecially because at times it was hard for me to believe that I was playing via streaming and not locally.
A birthday is a good time to take stock of what we have achieved over time, and that is precisely what NVIDIA has done, taking advantage of the third anniversary of its well-known cloud gaming service. As of today, GeForce Now has more than 25 million users, an impressive figure that alone confirms the success of such a service.
This data is important, but it is not the only one, nor is it the most interesting. Do you know how many hours of streaming gameplay have been produced in total during those three years? Well, hold on, curves are coming, more than 700 million hours. This means that GeForce Now not only has a huge user base, but they are also quite active.
Games and technologies available: GeForce Now is the most advanced platform
This is not open to discussion. At the time of writing this article we can find more than 1,500 games available, and we can use those that we have already purchased, or that we have obtained for free through the different promotions that Steam, Good Old Games and the Epic Games Store have been offering. Of those more than 1,500 games available 50+ support ray tracing and DLSS from NVIDIA.
Personally, I think that this was NVIDIA’s greatest success when it laid the foundations for GeForce Now, giving users the ability to link their accounts on these platforms to be able to play their games. This prevented them from having to pay twice again, and made access to said service could be really free in its basic mode.
Another important key that has contributed to the success of GeForce Now has been its large deployment of servers, present in more than 30 data centers spread all over the world. This has allowed NVIDIA to offer connection points closer to gamers, something essential to reduce latency and to improve the user experience.
The evolution that GeForce Now has experienced in those three years is also a clear reflection that NVIDIA has been able to adapt the service to the advances that have been taking place in the sector. In its beginnings it was possible to play in 1080p with a rate of 60 frames per second, and in 2021 there was a huge leap with the arrival of the RTX 3080 plan, which allowed playing in 4K and 60 frames per secondand which also gave users access to ray tracing and DLSS.
GeForce Now recently raised the bar again with the RTX 4080 plan, which marks such a huge leap in power that it allows us to play in 4K resolution with a rate of 120 frames per second, or in 1080p at 240 frames per second. This new modality also introduces NVIDIA DLSS3, which allows one additional frame to be generated on the GPU for every two frames rendered in the traditional way, and NVIDIA Reflex with G-Sync support, which reduces latency and improves the gaming experience.
The GeForce RTX 4080 NVIDIA mode has taken such a leap forward that it has managed to blur the fine line between local and cloud gaming a bit more, and It has become the rival to beat.
To all of the above we must also add the broad support and compatibility that GeForce Now offers, since we can use this service on PC and macOS, in browsers such as Safari and Chrome, and it is also available on other devices, including Logitech Cloud G and Razer Edge 5G, and on LG and Samsung televisions.
To celebrate the third anniversary, NVIDIA has confirmed that it will offer a series of rewards to its more than 25 million members in specific games. Starting this week, Dying Light 2 will be able to get the new “Post-Apo” skin and the Rough Duster, Bleak Pants, Well-Worn Boots, Tattered Leather Gauntlets, Dystopian Mask, and Spiked Bracers items. Additionally, users who upgrade to Priority or Ultimate will receive the Scrap Slicer weapon and the Patchy Paraglider item.
Before finishing, I leave you with a complete list of the new games that will be available on GeForce Now later this month:
- Dark and Darker playtest (Steam).
- Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society (Steam).
- Wanted: Dead (Steam and Epic Games).
- Elderand (Steam).
- Wild West Dynasty (Steam).
- The Settlers: New Allies (Ubisoft Store).
- Atomic Heart (Steam).
- Chef Life — A Restaurant Simulator (Steam).
- Blood Bowl 3 (Steam and Epic Games Store).
- Scars Above (Steam).
- Heads Will Roll: Reforged (Steam).
- Above Snakes (Steam).
- Across the Obelisk (Steam).
- Captain of Industry (Steam).
- Tycoon Poster (Steam and Epic Games Store).
- Ember Knights (Steam).
- Inside the Backrooms (Steam).
- SimRail — The Railway Simulator (Steam).
