Nvidia’s GeForce Now is upgrading to RTX 5080 GPUs and opening a floodgate of recent video games

It’s been two and a half years since Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service received a giant enhance in graphics, latency, and refresh charges — this September, Nvidia’s GFN will formally add its newest Blackwell GPUs. You’ll quickly have the ability to lease what’s successfully an RTX 5080 within the cloud, one with a whopping 48GB of reminiscence and DLSS 4, then use that energy to stream your individual near-maxed-out PC video games to your cellphone, Mac, PC, TV, set-top, or Chromebook for $20 a month.

The information comes with some caveats, however a bunch of different upgrades, too, the largest of which is known as “Install-to-Play.” Nvidia is lastly bringing again the power to put in video games with out ready for Nvidia to formally curate them. Nvidia claims that can double the GeForce Now library in a single fell swoop.

No, you’ll be able to’t simply set up any previous PC sport you personal — however each sport that’s opted into Valve’s Steam Cloud Play will instantly be obtainable to put in. “Literally the moment we add the feature, you’ll see 2,352 games show up,” Nvidia product advertising and marketing director Andrew Fear tells The Verge. After that, he says Install-to-Play will let Nvidia add many extra video games and demos to GFN on their launch dates than Nvidia can handle by itself, simply as long as publishers tick that field.

Currently, Steam is the one platform suitable with Install-to-Play, however Fear tells me many publishers are inclined to decide in by way of Valve’s distribution community, together with Ubisoft, Paradox, Nacom, Devolver, TinyBuild and CD Projekt Red.

One vital caveat is that Install-to-Play video games gained’t launch immediately like curated titles; you’ll have to obtain and set up them every time, until you pay Nvidia additional for persistent storage at $3 for $200GB, $5 for 500GB, or $8 for 1TB per 30 days. Installs ought to be quick, although, since Nvidia’s servers are linked to Valve’s Steam servers. When GFN initially launched with the same function, I bear in mind downloading video games far quicker than I’ve ever performed at dwelling.

And Nvidia has a brand new use in your dwelling bandwidth, too. If you’ve received sufficient, GFN will even now allow you to stream at 5K decision (for each 16:9 screens and ultrawides) at 120fps, or at as much as 360fps at 1080p.

There’s additionally a brand new non-obligatory Cinematic Quality Streaming mode you’ll be able to toggle that Nvidia claims can cut back shade bleed and restore element to darkish and blurry areas of a scene because it’s streamed over the online, and now you can stream at as much as 100Mbps, up from 75Mbps beforehand, to assist preserve that high quality. (It makes use of HDR10 and SDR10, with YUV 4:4:4 chroma sampling, streamed over AV1 with an added AI video filter and a few optimizations for clearer textual content and HUD components.)

Plus, Steam Deck OLED homeowners will have the ability to stream at its native 90Hz refresh price (up from 60Hz), LG is bringing a local GeForce Now app on to its 4K OLED TVs and 5K OLED screens — “no Android TV devices, no Chromecast, nothing, run it directly on the television,” says Fear — and Logitech racing wheels with haptic suggestions are actually supported too.

How far more efficiency will you actually get from an RTX 5080 within the cloud? That’s the actual query, and we don’t have a transparent reply but. For one factor, Nvidia isn’t promising you’ll all the time have an RTX 5080-tier GPU for each sport you play. The firm’s $20-a-month GFN Ultimate tier will nonetheless embody RTX 4080-class playing cards too, at the very least in the interim.

Fear says there’s no ulterior motive there — it’ll simply take time for 5080 efficiency to roll out “as we add the servers and bring up capacity.” He additionally rattles off a laundry listing of well-liked video games that’ll have 5080 efficiency instantly, together with Apex Legends, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Baldur’s Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, Clair Obscur, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom: The Dark Ages… you get the concept.

The different caveat is that whereas Nvidia claims its new Blackwell Superpods are as much as 2.8 instances quicker at gaming, that’s solely when you have DLSS 4 producing three faux frames for each actual body (4x MFG) and being OK with any ensuing lag. We weren’t blown away with the uplift from RTX 4080 to RTX 5080 in our evaluation of the bodily card, and latency is much more vital if you’re streaming over the online.

That stated, Tom and I’ve been impressed with GFN’s latency previously. I’ve parried Expedition 33 foes and Sekiro bosses with it — and in light-weight video games, Nvidia’s latency might have gotten even higher this gen due to partnerships with ISPs like Comcast, T-Mobile and BT for low-latency L4S tech and the brand new 360fps mode. The firm claims the 360fps mode can ship end-to-end latency of simply 30ms in Overwatch 2, a sport the place you don’t want multi-frame technology (MFG) to get that many frames.

That’s extra responsive than a house console — assuming you’re shut sufficient and peered nicely sufficient to Nvidia’s servers to get 10ms ping, like I do within the San Francisco Bay Area.

The excellent news is, you gained’t need to pay an additional cent for the RTX 5080 efficiency enhance both manner. GeForce Now Ultimate will stay $19.99 a month for now. “We’re not going to increase our price at all,” says Fear, in a bunch briefing. When I ask him privately whether or not Nvidia will enhance it later, he can’t say, however claims GFN has solely ever elevated value when Nvidia noticed a giant enhance in energy utilization or wanted to rebalance foreign money trade in some areas. “Nothing’s written in stone, but we’re saying for now no plans to make a price increase.”

Additionally, Nvidia is attempting an intriguing new experiment that bakes GeForce Now into Discord so avid gamers can immediately strive new video games without cost proper from a Discord server, no GeForce Now login required. Epic Games and Discord are the primary companions demoing the know-how at Gamescom this week.

“You can simply click a button that says ‘try a game’ and then connect your Epic Games account and immediately jump in and and join the action, and you’ll be playing Fortnite in seconds without any downloads or installs,” says Fear. He tells The Verge that it’s merely a “technology announcement” as of at present, however that Nvidia hopes sport publishers and builders will attain out in the event that they’re curious about probably including it to their video games.

I hope so, as I’ve been in awe of try-before-you-buy cloud gaming ever since Gaikai introduced the idea 15 years in the past, however Gaikai’s founder instructed me years later that publishers didn’t essentially need it.

I’m wanting ahead to attempting GeForce Now’s 5080-class servers after they launch in September, alongside the brand new 90Hz mode for Steam Deck OLED, and I’m curious whether or not the inflow of video games will lastly make it really feel like a real console various for me. One of my final massive remaining reservations is what number of of my Steam video games are nonetheless lacking.

Speaking of which, don’t count on to see Sony or Rockstar video games like Grand Theft Auto on the service anytime quickly. “I have no updates, they have chosen not to be on GFN, and you should go ask them,” Fear tells me.