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"GeForce Now" (Streamed Games) FREE (for Now) on Nvidia Shield TV

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In case there are some nVidia Shield users out there who are not yet aware; nVidia is working on upgrading their servers. Till they get done with that (and it could take a while), the monthly subscription fee for Geforce Now gaming is on hold and shield users can play all geforce now included games and the ones previously purchased for free till then.

Some decent game titles in there (Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution, Bioshock Remastered, Borderlands, Just Cause 2, etc) and even though my network test said that conditions were not ideal to play, I was able to play with no issues at all. I'm really surprised cloud gaming can work so well!

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  • +1

    Sweet! Thanks Op. Will give it a go on my Shield TV tonight

    • +1

      hell yeah me too!

  • +1

    Awesome thanks!

  • Probably just stress testing their new server

  • +2

    Didnt know this!! Thx

    • +1

      Oops.. I should have posted this earlier then. I have been playing for free for nearly a month now :D

      • Ummm this is useless to anyone living in Australia as Nvidia doesn't have any Geforce Now servers here so the closest location you can stream from is Japan. Last time I tried it on my Shield a couple of months back the latency was averaging around 150ms which made most games unplayable. And before anyone asks, this has nothing to do with my internet connection which is 100Mbps/40Mbps fibre to the premises (full fat fibre) on Aussie Broadband. Nvidia have given no indication whether they will even be deploying servers here which is why they haven't been advertising it to Australians.

        • -2

          Yeah go ahead and downvote me for stating facts - I dare anyone ACTUALLY playing GeForce Now from Australia to downvote me

        • +1

          Same experience here. And reading forums, this isnt the norm, but the rule. Unplayable from Australia.

        • @merajaan:
          Just saying, don't confuse bandwidth with latency. Due to the speed of light 150ms to Japan is expected, so your connection seems quite good. You would need less than 60ms for a great experience and that is impossible without servers or deploying edge optimisers in Australia.

          It's not useless, I would say comparable to PS Remote play over cellular and varies from title to title.

        • @spammenotinoz: I'm not confusing bandwidth with latency - I was just quoting my internet connection speed as I know some here don't understand the distinction. As I said in my post, this deal really isn't a deal and shouldn't have been posted as it is virtually unplayable in Australia. It needs at least 50ms of latency to provide a decent experience and for that it would need local servers.

        • @merajaan: Just don't play any action games, there are a few turn based games on there which is playable. Obviously experience is not ideal but no reflexes needed for turn based.

          However, even with my 100 Mbps connection I cannot get 1080p, only 720p on my shield and sometimes drops to 540p. Considering my connection test states over 50 Mbps and it's connected via ethernet.

        • @merajaan: I get a similar ping playing Japanese BF4 servers with adsl2.

        • What an absolute crock of shit, I have been subscribed to and have used geforce now streaming for 2 years and even before the server upgrades it has been fine to play on. Unplayable is just utter bullshit, sure “sometimes” it get a little laggy but most of the time it’s completely fine to use.

        • This is like one of those 60hz vs 144hz comments. That latency is defiantely not ideal and will probably prevent you winning consistently in competitive FPS games, but you can easily play many games with that latency.

        • @worker: Why so angry?

          There are many games where timing is critical and latency can ruin the experience of playing it.

          Not sure if you play games that have a parry option in games such as Witcher 3, where you have a fraction of a second to have pressed the block button at the right time to cause a parry. A high an irregular latency can make that difficult, frustrating and take the fun away from playing.

          I'd hate to play a rally simulator with such a latency.

        • @aussieprepper: That's not really equivalent though. For a streaming service, the network latency is going to affect the time between user input and the game reacting on-screen.

          When you're playing an online match of BF4, your user actions are reflected on screen instantaneously. The high latency might mean you're seeing predicted locations of other players rather than actual locations, but you are seeing an estimation of what the game world looks like "right now" rather than being 0.15 seconds behind.

  • +2

    Thanks! that's awesome. Didn't previously use it because of the price but I'll certainly give it a go now

  • +1

    Thanks OP.

  • Just researching it now. So i can play games from the comfort of my couch?

    • NVM, looks like theres too much input lag in gamestream. And not interested in any of the titles on offer

      • You got some bad info there… Well I guess it depends on you network, speeds, eye for detail etc :)

        Yes you can play from your couch.

        I have a pretty smooth gaming experience (albeit only at 1080p) on 50mbps broadband on WIFI! Should be better still on higher internet speeds and through wired Ethernet. I'm just a casual gamer (but there are times when I play for almost half a day at a stretch) and I don't see any noticeable input lag

        Titles on offer are not the best now because its just the included free games (and did i mention it is FREE?). Much bigger selection with the paid games (when it comes back online)

        • Is this Gamestreaming or Geforcenow? I was more interested in FPS games such as CS:GO, Fortnite, and Battlefield 1 which is just streaming from your PC to the shield.

      • 22mbit DSL and 90% of the time it won't even let me connect due to latency. The other 10% of the time the res jumps up and down, high input latency and artifacting

        tl;dr It's a great media player, is covered in sh**ty advertising (sorry, "suggested content") and streaming gaming is highly variable because Australia.

        Edit: Do get used to it though, subscription streaming games WILL be the future

        • Just out of curiosity, what did you mean by the advertising bit?

        • @0FoxGiven: 'Suggested' items is the first menu you land on when turning the device on, it presents YouTube videos, Netflix content etc that, I assume, are paid for (eg it's not your Netflix movies or YouTube content from people you follow)

          You can't turn the menu off, the best you can do is disable each apps 'suggestions', then rather than dropping you at your apps it keeps you on the first line of the menu with a crying cloud and a 'We can't find any suggestions' type message

          https://i.iinfo.cz/images/302/nvidia-shield-tv-2017-resp-and…

          The first line that's highlighted is the suggested items, it's not complicated to get around (you just click down once) but it's irritating because it's clearly paid content on an expensive device that's not content you requested, and you can't disable it.

        • @unique452: That's not advertising, that's just how android TV OS is because the app devs and google haven't really worked together much to show things in a better way. Its one of the biggest gripes ppl had with the Shield TV's Oreo update.

          I didn't like it either so i just turned off suggestions for everything except VLC and The Economist… And I'm not irritated with any irrelevant suggestions anymore :)

        • @unique452:

          Suggested items aren't paid for advertising (though I can understand why you would think they are).

          They are like 'shortcuts' to your favourite apps. If your Youtube is logged in, for example, it will show videos from your subscribed channels. IF not, it will show random videos akin to how the Youtube app or Youtube homepage does. Netflix is the same.

          If you have SPMC, it will show shortcuts to movies you have added to your collection (though I'm not sure if they are chosen at random or what).

  • +1

    Free beta has been running for some time now on Mac and PC for those who feel left out.

    20+ MBps required to use (unsure what the nearest server is, so expect high latency), but one day the basic package will be like the Netflix of gaming, which is arguably a good thing for casual/single player experiences when you consider expected hardware costs).

    • +1

      Thanks for the heads up!

      • +1

        Just keep in mind when I say 'the Netflix of gaming', I'm not referring to the latest titles per se, more just a large collection of games available for a reasonable monthly fee.

  • +1

    Awesome!!!

  • Ummm this is useless to anyone living in Australia as Nvidia doesn't have any Geforce Now servers here so the closest location you can stream from is Japan. Last time I tried it on my Shield a couple of months back the latency was averaging around 150ms which made most games unplayable. And before anyone asks, this has nothing to do with my internet connection which is 100Mbps/40Mbps fibre to the premises (full fat fibre) on Aussie Broadband. Nvidia have given no indication whether they will even be deploying servers here which is why they haven't been advertising it to Australians.

    • +1

      This is very true, surprised this deal was posted as latency is at 145ms min (in my experience - due to geography), which is unplayable. This deal is only useful if you're playing a puzzle game or you're in a country with Nvidia servers near by.

    • I'm playing off the US server.. works fine for me (i'm not playing anything in Multiplayer mode)… Have you tried playing recently? They might have already upgraded servers which is why it works so smooth for me now on a connection that's half the speed of yours.

      • Yep tried US servers as well latency still hovering around 100ms on average. When you test your connection within the GeForce Now app, what latency rating doesn't it come back with?

    • +1

      We may get local servers very soon it seems :)

      https://ausdroid.net/2018/06/22/surprise-nvidia-finally-brin…

  • Do you need to VPN to use it?

    • +1

      no

  • How to game saves work on a streamed game? seeing as your not playing the game on your own machine

    • -1

      You get to start all over again next time.

    • I guess they just save it remotely and tie it to your Nvidia account. Why wouldn't they do that?

  • I reckon that they are rebuilding Geforce Now with some of those 300,000 GPUs they have spare

  • +1

    Also Nvidia Shield is about to OFFICIALLY launch in Australia so I'm sure they will bring local servers for Geforce Now

  • I'm still waiting to get into the PC beta…

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