New Delhi: Nvidia has launched the GeForce Now game streaming service in India. At 50 mbps you can get 4K game streaming at 60 FPS, but for the top-tier experience, a 100 mbps connection is recommended, at which point the experience will be similar to a local 5080 card according to Nvidia. The service works on Macs, Smart TVs, smartphones, and thin-and-light laptops. Essentially, if you got a screen, you can probably run GeForce Now on it. At the product demos we saw it running on an old unsupported iPhone, as well as a notebook with Linux on it. There is a native Linux client, and it is not something that works on a browser.
GeForce Now works on old devices as well. (Image Credit: Nvidia).
The service uses local servers in Mumbai, with GeForce RTX 5080 Superpods, which are the latest and greatest Blackwell generation Superpods. Blackwell provides cinematic quality streaming, G-sync in the cloud, DLSS, and Nvidia Reflex that reduces lag in competitive games. Then there is the Rivermax technology that provides hardware-level packet tracing for smooth and consistent streaming by offloading the packet processing from the CPU to dedicated hardware accelerators. This significantly reduces choppiness and micro-stutters that can deteriorate a game streaming experience. The tech that Nvidia is working on in India is L4S, that reduces latency and packet loss in congested networks, which is something that Nvidia needs work closely with service providers for.
Service to start with open beta
Technical Product Manager John Gillooly stressed at the launch that it was important for Nvidia to bring in the latest tech to India. These pods are 35 per cent faster than the previous generation, with double the system memory. So the users of GeForce now in India will have access to the hottest silicon on the market. There are over 4000 games available from Steam, Ubisoft, Xbox, Epic and GoG, among others. About 180 Xbox Game Pass titles are available, along with new AAA releases. There is support for racing wheels, flight sticks and VR headsets as well. The service will be starting off with an open beta. Pricing and availability information has not been announced at this point of time.