Nvidia Releases a Geforce NOW app for Linux systems

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Nvidia has just released a native Linux application to benefit from its Geforce NOW streaming service. Previously it was possible to connect to their service using a regular browser, but this native app (in beta) makes things much easier and lets you access better settings to run your games, if you have a sufficiently fast connection.

GeForce NOW finally on Linux

You don’t purchase games on GeForce NOW, you purchase a service to stream the games you already own on Steam, GOG, or Epic Games Store, as long as the said game is supported by GeForce NOW. You are asked to connect your store accounts in order to confirm that you actually own said games, which is done by a token exchange between the Nvidia platform and the stores of your choice. In my case, while I have more than a thousand games on Steam, only about 340 were confirmed to be compatible with GeForce NOW. Not bad, but still far from a full catalog kind of thing.

By default you have access to a free account that lets you stream games up to 1080p, and that is ad-supported. If you want to have better settings (high resolution, less wait times, no ads, and Ray Tracing support), you need to pay for the service.

GeForce NOW pricing scheme

So effectively you pay for the quality of streaming, and accessing your games remotely, not for the games themselves. This is a great option if you are on the go with a laptop without a powerful GPU, for example.

System requirements

You can find the requirements regarding Linux to run their app, and at the time of writing, this is what you need:

  • Dual core x86 or x64 CPU at 2.0GHz or faster
  • 4GB of system memory
  • A modern GPU that supports H.264 or H.265 Vulkan video codecs, such as GeForce 10 series or newer; search for your GPU in these lists: H.264 or H.265
  • For NVIDIA GPUs, a minimum driver version of 580.126.07+. Please note that after installing a new driver on the host system, you should reinstall the GFN app again
  • For Intel/AMD GPUs that use Mesa, recommended driver version is 24.2.8

Sadly they only support x86_64 architecture at the moment. It would be great if ARM64 systems (or let’s be crazy, RISC-V systems) were to be supported in the future, because that would open the door of gaming to non Intel/AMD systems.

Installation

The installation is actually super easy. You get to download a .bin file, you make it executable with a chmod command or through the file manager of your choice, and after launching it, it installs and launches the application fairly quickly.

GeForce NOW installation

After installation, you land in the main interface where you are asked to log in to their service (after creating an account), and afterwards you have a bunch of games available and you can either sync your whole Steam, GOG or Epic Game Store account, or mark a single game as “owned” and link it thanks to license information coming from a specific store.

GeForce NOW steam connect

Here you can see what the interface looks like after connecting my Steam library.

GeForce NOW Linux client interface

Launching a game with a free account puts your in a queue to secure a machine that will run the game for you. When I tried earlier this morning, Japan time, there were only about 40 people ahead of me in the queue.

Geforce NOW: entering the queue

Later in the day, when I tried again, I had a queue with 700+ people ahead of me! Wow. I guess, depending on the time of the day, you could have time to make a coffee, or even cook lunch. Of course, I had to try Cyberpunk 2077, and it fared pretty well! I was surprised.

GeForce NOW: cyberpunk 2077 ultra details, streaming

I could easily go to 1080p ultra details (no RTX, unfortunately, because of the Free account), and it ran very smoothly over the network. I took a quick capture in video below (the framerate is not representative, I captured the video at 30fps).

Only a couple of issues, per se:

  • There was some slight latency. Not too bad, not noticeable when using the mouse. I believe that it would be more or less obvious depending on the type of game you play and the controls.
  • The max resolution was 1080, in 16:9 format, which meant that my ultra wide screen had black bars on the left and right.

No killer issue. I was actually pretty convinced that GeForce NOW is a viable way to play games if you have nothing else. The game started very quickly, too - you click on install from your remote Steam interface, and the install is almost instant (probably because they cache the game files across all players).

Nice to have?

Personally, I would not pay for such a service as I don’t need it enough to justify it, so the free account option is great. In case you travel a lot, or you lack a powerful GPU but have a great internet connection, why not. You would still need to purchase the games anyway, but instead of buying a 1000 dollars GPU you can game for several years on the mid-range subscription, so this is not a bad deal per se. Kind of like renting vs buying a property. It’s not always obvious which is better, because it depends on your priorities and your use cases.

However, one thing is sure, the wind is blowing.

This is yet another sign that Linux is becoming a more popular platform. The more large companies invest in Linux, the more users will grasp that Linux has become a proper alternative to Windows for gaming… and for other things, too. There are rumors that GOG is also working on a GOG Galaxy client for Linux (finally!) - if this materializes, this would be another major entry on the Linux market.

I guess Tim must be feeling really alone right now, with his deep hatred for everything Linux.

Don’t worry Tim, Microsoft still loves you.