NVIDIA have today released the Beta for their new Native Linux app for GeForce NOW, available as a Flatpak so it should run across most x86-64 systems. Thanks to NVIDIA I was able to get some early testing in to see how the experience holds up, with NVIDIA providing Ultimate-plan access.

What actually is it? GeForce NOW is a cloud gaming service from NVIDIA. It allows you to play games streamed from their servers to your devices. This includes various free to play games and games you own from your own libraries across Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox PC Game Pass, Battle.net, Ubisoft Connect and EA. There’s currently over 4,500 games available.

  • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    Oh is it the same nvidia that just stops supports for 1000 series and that kisses pedonald’s ass? Get fucked.

  • Reygle@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    available as a Flatpak

    Sweet, input latency (lag) via my favorite app delivery platform, and tied to a paid cloud account hosted by the shittiest behaving company on the planet! Can’t wait to watch it wither and die.

      • Reygle@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Let’s say you press a button on their “pretty looking” encoded stream using your “web browser”. The absolute minimum amount of time for your input signal to reach the “machine” actually running the application/game is (on average) 30ms. The next frame of the game which acknowledges your input takes (again, absolute minimum) another 30ms to get from there to you. In reality, it’s more like 120ms of “lag” minimum, no matter what anyone does to streamline/prioritize packets/eek out more efficiency.

        It’s the worst possible problem for playing any game. It’s what killed Stadia, it’s what killed Amazon’s BS game streaming service. Makes a person feel just a tiny bit “drunk”- things taking too long, etc.

        You may not “feel” if if you’ve never gamed locally (normally, game running on your own computer) but it’s there and it fucking sucks.

  • gustofwind@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I played all of cyberpunk on a MacBook Air using this back when it came out and it was pretty awesome

    I get the hate but if you don’t own a gaming computer it’s pretty good

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      The hate comes from the fact that these companies don’t want you to own a gaming computer or any computer anymore. These tech companies want you to rent forever and never own anything because owning doesn’t make them all the money.

      Combine that with the AI driven memory shortage and NVIDIA moving away from making gaming video cards and cutting their MSPR program it’s clear that they don’t want you to own anything going forward and just be only steaming on their servers and not just having it be an option.

      • gustofwind@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I know, I said I get the hate but I don’t have a gaming computer anyway so it was pretty awesome nonetheless

        If ai crashes out we can buy all the cards when the data centers go under and sell them all back

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Yeah. And it’s dirt cheap. For now.

      Use it while it’s subsidized, and drop it like a rock the instant it enshittifies. That’s been the optimal strategy for pretty much everything.

      • SeventySeven@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        Last I heard they limited the number of hours you can play and raised the price. It’s probably going to get worse real soon.

        • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          For some context, in the machine learning GPU market, Nvidia makes basically two products:

          • Supercomputer chips with HBM memory. This is the A100, H100, B200, along with AMD’s MI325X and such; things you won’t even find as PCIe cards. These cannot game.

          • Then there’s repurposed gaming silicon, like the L40, A40 and such. These are 3090/4090/5090 silicon dies with more VRAM hanging off, but otherwise basically identical. These can game.

          In a nutshell, everyone wants the former. No one wants the latter; to the point where Nvidia stipulates “if you buy H200s, so must also buy this many L40s” in big business contracts. They can’t even get buyers to take them.


          Where I’m going with this is that, contrary to what you hear, Nvidia has a whole bunch of “budget” server GPUs piling up that no one really wants for their still-astronomical asking price. This has been happening for a few years. They’ve got to do something with them, and they’re basically perfect for cloud gaming.

          Hence cloud gaming is relatively cheap now, even with price adjustments. It’s cheap because the hardware is in surplus and the service is new. But this is not going to last, and I guarantee you will see major cloud gaming price hikes in the future over the shrinking surplus.

          However, I’m saying that it is really cheap now and it’s gonna stay that way in the short term. The adjustments so far are pretty minor.

          • glimse@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Small correction: the A100, H100, and B200 all have PCIe configurations.

            But as you said, no gaming. No directX and no HDMI output even

            • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              Yeah. They aren’t common though, especially with the H200 and on where they’re mostly sold as SXM.

              The A100 can actually game, either streaming it or using another card for output. The H100 technically can; it has everything needed, but (if I recall correctly) so few ROPs that it’s as slow as molasses.

              Interestingly, the AMD MI300X and on omit ROPs entirely. Unlike Nvidia, aren’t needed for any backwards compatibility, I suppose.

  • Kronusdark@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I know the general sentiment with nvidia isn’t great right now and for the record I have cancelled my subscription, but I do want to say that for people who daily drive low-powered laptops, cloud gaming works pretty well and nvidia had a decent offering.

    Their monthly time limits for paid users completely turned me off though so I am voting with my wallet. I spent some time getting gamescope working well on my desktop to not really need it anymore. I use Niri and gaming is a mixed bag without gamescope.