Nvidia GeForce Now for India Hands-On: Built to Impress

Nvidia’s GeForce Now has been in service for about 10 years. Since then the platform has been undergoing numerous changes, and has spread globally over the years. And finally, it is heading to India. For those who don’t know, the cloud gaming service allows you to stream games to a device of your choice. This can be a basic smartphone, if you have sex on tv or tablet, simple work laptop or even pc? A controller (now on Linux) and an app are the only service you need to run the service the app (also available for a ), as well as. However, the GeForce Now app does provide a controller overlay (for touchscreen devices) even if you don’t have one with you. Despite the fact that it sounds like a great idea, Nvidia has taken some time to reach India. The service was semi-controlled and I had the opportunity to try it out in a semi controlled environment,’ said .

Tiers and estimated pricing

Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service will compete with Microsoft’ recently launched Xbox Cloud Gaming service for the rest of us. Microsoft in India currently provides an Essential tier at Rs. It is 499 per month that gives you access to 50 games on supported devices (handhelds, consoles and smartphones), tablets and PCs) as well as the basics such as streaming selected games which you have officially purchased from the store. In Rs, there is the Premium tier of Then there’s the premium. The new Xbox published games in 12 months (of launch) were accessed by 699 with 200+ games, the basics and access to the new games that had been released. On day one you get 400+ games and new games on the Ultimate tier.

RTX 5080 titles joining GeForce Now this year
Photo Credit: Gadgets 360

Compared to Nvidia GeForce Now, NVPI GeFce now feels less restricted. The free tier is for 1-hour gaming with ads, and there’s also a Globally-based Free Tier that allows to play games. The game basically renders RTX 3050-class quality, and streaming is limited to 1080p/60 fps. Next up is a Performance tier for $9. RTX 3060-class quality 6-hour sessions at 1440p streaming are available to subscribers 99 per month. Ray Tracing, HDR and 5 – as well as is also mentioned. A 1 surround sound is a . Lastly, is the Ultimate tier (which I experienced at GeForce Now demo zone in Mumbai)? $19, a price for . It is 99 per month, and provides 8-hour gaming sessions with RTX 4080-class graphics at 4K/240 fps or RPX 5080–class Graphics at 5K/12 hp. It also has access to 7 on the top tier, as well as s. DLSS 3 frame generation, Nvidia Reflex cloud technology and Cloud G-Sync 1 surround sound, a single layer of . Members of Save for the Free tier will be able to play Ready-to–Play and Install-and-To-Play games, including an estimated library of approximately 4,000 titles.

Nvidia has not disclosed any details of India pricing since the service has yet to launch, but we expect it will be competitive or comparable with Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming tiers.

The gaming experience

We didn’t see the setup process because we were already in a demo zone, so that you can connect to Steam libraries and install on demand. This was designed to showcase the fact that you don’t need powerful underlying hardware to play games via a cloud gaming service, and is part of Nvidia’s GeForce Now demo zone for playing games. The shorting was a 50Mbps connection, we were told that it should be enough for 4K streaming.

Hollow Knight: SilkSong on an iPhone 13
Photo Credit: Nvidia

gaming, the game experience was impressive and. For starters, I tried Playground’s Forza Horizon 5 for the best of its kind on a rather old OnePlus 10T. A controller was also installed with an Xbox to be easy to use, and it was designed as a . I ran a couple of races and didn’t notice one frame was skipped or dropped while doing so. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t playing the game on the phone but through a cloud gaming service. An iPhone 13 with Hollow Knight SilkSong on demo was also available as well and, like most of the time, worked flawlessly.

Hogwarts Legacy on an Apple iPad Pro
Photo Credit: Gadgets 360

Hogwarts Legacy (a 2-4ms ping) demo on an Apple iPad Pro was also tested for 60 fps with smooth 60-fpms gameplay. I’m thinking CyberPunk 2077 on a basic Dell Latitude 7420 was overkill, as the service was rendering it at 110 fps with 3ms ping of high quality. I also played Resident Evil Biohazard with a Steam Deck, which was probably not an issue running the game.

The Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 demo setup
Photo Credit: Nvidia

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 demo was the highlight of the demo zone with two gaming PCs side-by–side, and featured in its warhammers 4,000 space marine 2 demonstration. Among these were one of them was playing the game locally on an RTX 5080-based gaming PC, while the other was a dummy running that game via the GeForce Now service. Neither the quality nor frame rate of was clear, and it was hard to know whether they were different without the performance indicators.

No, it’s not out yet!

No details of a specific launch date for its cloud gaming service in India were confirmed by Nvidia, which did not say when it would launch its own cloud games service. Earlier releases did suggest that there was a 2026 Q1 release, and Nvidia’s John Gillooly (Senior Technical Marketing Manager) confirmed they are on track to meet that timeline.

Nvidia’s John Gillooly, Senior Technical Marketing Manager, APAC South
Photo Credit: Nvidia

I have tried Nvidia’s GeForce Now service in a semi-controlled environment. But, assuming the game streaming service is perfectly on any home broadband (or an established fiber network), from iSP of prestigious large names, I cannot say that it works well with no home internet connection or even has been properly connected to its own fiber networks. In addition to confirming its intention to work with any ISP in particular, Nvidia said it has “set up” its service so much that it does not need any special tie-ups from the local players. Regardless, we were told that the games in our demo zone were being streamed from Bombay (India) servers which did not belong to the hotel we had been at. I can say that we did not have a local server in the area, but had power of Nvidia’s regional servers.

Who is it for?

If there is a free level in the world, and Nvidia’s GeForce Now service can be seen as launching drug for those who have been holding back from starting to game, we should say that it was gateway by itself. As we are seeing, it reduces the need to own PC hardware and invest in & keep spending on upgrading PC Hardware; this is getting expensive because of the memory crisis. This service also serves a purpose for those who own handheld consoles such as the Steam Deck. RTX 4080 or 5080’s computing power will surely be the best way to try AAA titles at their best graphics settings in the comfort of your cosy couch, while you can play Deck-Verified titles smoothly at medium or low graphics. And of course, you can plug the service into a smart TV and watch the same title in 4K or 5K on ‘big display’ as well.

While the elephant in the room remains the limits of your ISP, the demo showed Nvidia is ready to deliver the goods. It gave us a good idea of what could be done with . And boy! Was I impressed with and boy!”

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