GeForce Now

[Alex79]

After the discussion on last weeks TCGS I thought I'd give it a try. If you don't know what it is, it's supposed to collect your Steam and Epic Games store games and enable you to play them via streaming from GeForce servers to a PC, Mac or Android device of your choosing.

Except it doesn't work.

I've got a big list of Epic Games from the giveaways which my laptop can't run. GeForce Now sounded perfect to give them a try, just see how the system runs.

I downloaded the PC client and added all my games from the Epic Store, but every time I try to run them it's asking me to log in to Steam to prove I own the game. Which of course I don't on Steam! There doesn't appear to be any way to tell GeForce Now you own the game through the Epic store.

Anyone else tried this service? It's a great idea - it just doesn't seem to work for Epic and it's meant to as far as I know.

(The couple of Steam games I tried did work OK, just not Epic)

[Alex79]

Just tried the Android client, same issue with only recognising Steam games, but just had Half Life 2 on my phone, that was pretty awesome!

[ThirdMan]

After the discussion on last weeks TCGS I thought I'd give it a try. If you don't know what it is, it's supposed to collect your Steam and Epic Games store games and enable you to play them via streaming from GeForce servers to a PC, Mac or Android device of your choosing.

Except it doesn't work.

I've got a big list of Epic Games from the giveaways which my laptop can't run. GeForce Now sounded perfect to give them a try, just see how the system runs.

I downloaded the PC client and added all my games from the Epic Store, but every time I try to run them it's asking me to log in to Steam to prove I own the game. Which of course I don't on Steam! There doesn't appear to be any way to tell GeForce Now you own the game through the Epic store.

Anyone else tried this service? It's a great idea - it just doesn't seem to work for Epic and it's meant to as far as I know.

(The couple of Steam games I tried did work OK, just not Epic)

I'm not sure about Epic but I've been using it with Steam. Unfortunately it only works with a relatively small number of games and most of the 'big games' are also available via console. I'm mostly interested in the service as a way of playing PC exclusives on my Mac so hopefully that side of the library will continue to grow.

It's been fine for me on a 35mbps connection, altough I've primarily been playing the slow-paced Disco Elysium. The 'faster' the game the quicker it will buckle under a weak connection. Destiny 2 was a laggy mess for me. 50mbps is what they recommend for 1080p, 60fps but that's very ambitious as far as I'm concerned. I had a small run at Arma 3 last night on my friend's 100mbps connection and it was very solid though not as fast as I would have liked considering I was double their recommended specs. But it was still remarkable having that kind of gaming experience on a decade old Macbook.

I read some troubleshooting threads and there are people with ridiculously fast connections having problems with lag because of their distance from a server. There are two servers in Europe. I'm not sure where they're located but it seems that even a super-fast connection may not be enough to save you from lag (I don't understand this stuff!).

It feels like it's still in beta. Signing into the service and then booting up an instance of the game in Steam looks and feels clumsy. It's just not very elegant. But it does work. My long-running daydream of getting a gaming PC has been put on an even longer hold. I hope to be juiced up to 250mbps broadband within the next few months. This could solve a lot of my problems if the library continues to grow.

I particularly like how it pulls from your Steam account. I'd be reluctant about buying games on Stadia, for example, because its future is uncertain. But even if Geforce Now folds I'll still have my Steam library. If it expands out to include the GOG Galaxy client then I'll be home and dry.

[ThirdMan]

Just tried the Android client, same issue with only recognising Steam games, but just had Half Life 2 on my phone, that was pretty awesome!

I was playing Disco Elysium in bed last night and it looked even sharper on the small screen. Plus that game uses only simple mouse clicks so it was functioning like a touch screen game. It was slightly finicky and I won't be playing the entire game like that, but as a proof of concept it was very impressive. 3 days ago I was eagerly awaiting that game's upcoming console port, yet there I was playing it on my phone. Pretty cool.

[stvnorman]

Same problem here. Installed it on my Mac so I could access all the Steam and Epic PC games I’ve amassed, but it only recognised bits of my Steam account. By the time I’d messed around working that out my free account daily time period was about done and I’ve not been back since. More than enough to play elsewhere.

[DomsBeard]

Never had steam so signed up purely for Disco Elysium. It feels like I've found a cheat way of playing games on my Mac and is nowhere near as polished as a certain other service. But I guess this why it's a beta.