GeForce Now ups its game with 4K60 HDR on Shield, 120fps on PC
Nvidia's game streaming service, GeForce Now, will soon get a new premium subscription tier that lets users enjoy game streaming at up 4K60 HDR on Shield TV and up to 1600p120 SDR on PC/Mac.GeForce Now game streaming
Unlike Xbox Game Pass which offers access to a game bundle for a monthly fee, GeForce Now lets you stream select PC games purchased through participating storefronts (Steam, Epic etc) on supported devices – you pay for the technology. A new, more expensive subscription plan ($100 every six months) will let you enjoy game streaming at higher quality, rendered on a server equivalent to a GeForce RTX 3080 graphic card. - "GeForce NOW RTX 3080 members will have exclusive access to the new servers, streaming at up to 1440p at 120 FPS on PC, 1600p at 120 FPS on most MacBooks, 1440p at 120 FPS on most iMacs, 4K HDR at 60 FPS on Nvidia Shield TV and up to 120 FPS on select Android devices," announced Nvidia. "(It) delivers an instant upgrade in performance for common hardware — a 70x increase for the average laptop on Steam, 13x for an M1-based Macbook Air and 7x for the most popular desktop configuration on Steam."The Nvidia Shield box will utilize HEVC for 4K60 HDR streaming – 4K120 HDR would require Shield to have an HDMI 2.1 port and a more advanced decoding chip. GeForce Now will also support 7.1 surround sound. On PC and Mac, latency for 120fps game streaming should be as low as 56ms compared to 93ms for Xbox Series X at 60fps or close to 200ms for competing game streaming services, according to Nvidia.
GeForce Now latency at 120fps. Photo: NvidiaYou will need a 40 Mbps internet connection for 4K HDR game streaming and 35 Mbps for 1440p120. Nvidia is considering adding 4K support on PCs and other TV devices that support HEVC decoding. Google Stadia already supports 4K HDR game streaming while Amazon Luna, PlayStation Now, and Xbox Game Pass (xCloud) are limited to maximum 1080p. GeForce Now's new premium subscription tier will be offered first to existing members in the US and Europe. It will go live in November/December.
