Usually, I dislike subscriptions. Everything has become a subscription these days and it’s a bit of death by a thousand cuts. However, there are some alternatives which are subscription based. GeForce Now is one of them. This is my first time talking about GeForce Now, so I’m going to give a little background to what it is and what changes they just announced.
What is GeForce Now?
GeForce Now is a subscription service that gives you remote access to a gaming PC. With the cost of building a capable gaming computer generally fairly expensive, GeForce Now gives you virtual access to the best specs in exchange for a monthly fee. It’s a great idea which ensures you always have an up-to-date system for gaming without any of the cost or maintenance.
You do, however, need to have a very good internet connection. Through my experience with GeForce Now, FSP games like Modern Warfare are practically unplayable. But as a MacBook user, I used GeForce Now to play Cities Skylines 2 while on the go (as it’s not supported on Mac).
There are some really important caveats you need to know about GeForce Now before you consider it a perfect solution.
BYOG: Bring Your Own Games
I’ll talk about the pricing in a bit, and while there’s a free tier, GeForce Now isn’t cheap. That GeForce Now membership only covers the gaming rig you’re accessing remotely. It doesn’t include any other games. You’ll have to sign in with Steam or Microsoft Gamepass or similar and install your games on the virtual machine.
The way this is setup, can cause some issues for how modern gamers game. I wanted to install mods and edit local files, but GeForce Now wasn’t really set up for that. Nvidia has to make sure my game installs and save files are safe but also ensure its own systems aren’t affected by someone installing manual mod files and the likes.
GeForce Now Pricing
GeForce Now comes in three price tiers.
Free
The Free tier is, rather unsurprisingly, free. But by not paying for the platform, you will have to queue to get access to a gaming rig and also be limited to 1 hours of gaming. There are also ads, but it’s free. If you’re not paying, you are the product. You can’t really complain about this tier a whole lot.
Some other limits to the Free tier include only being able to game up to 1080p, no support for ultrawide monitors and just stereo audio.
Next up is the Performance tier which costs €10.99 per month. You will still have to queue, but for shorter periods of time. Your sessions will also be limited to 6-hour runs.
This subscription will let you game on a 1440p QHD level of quality on a virtual machine running reasonably good specs from the Nvidia RTX range. It’s also the first of the plans which hit monthly limits. Yes, even though you pay for access to GeForce Now, there are limits. For everyone. No matter how you pay. More on that later.
Like the Free tier, the Performance tier also lets you game at 60fps, but unlike the Free tier you get higher streaming resolution, support for ultrawide monitors, surround 5.1 audio but no HDR.
Ultimate
GeForce Now’s top plan is €21.99 per month. There is still a queuing system for this plan, but it promises to be the shortest wait. In my experience, I’ve never been made wait on this tier, but it’s there for a reason and you will surely see it eventually. Most importantly, this premium tier gets you premium hardware access. You’ll be gaming on a GrForce RTX 4080 with 16 vCPUs. You’ll be able to game on ultrawides, up to 240fps with 4K HDR and either 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound support.
But rather surprisingly even paying a premium and being made to wait in a queue, you are subjected to the same monthly limits as Performance members. Sure, your single sessions can run for 8 hours at a time, but your total time per month is capped at 100 hours.
So let’s talk about this.
Nvidia GeForce Now Introduces Monthly Limits
On 7th November, Nvidia emailed customers to say there would now be monthly limits applied to GeForce Now subscribers. The email states, “starting on January 1, 2025, new Ultimate and Performance memberships will have a high monthly max playtime of 100 hours”. Nvidia claims this will affect fewer than 6% of their subscriber base and it should ensure “you continue to receive low to no queue times and a high-quality experience every session”.
The Good News
The good news is that this change is being implemented to try deliver a better experience, reducing queuing times and ensuring everyone can access the service equally.
There’s also a rollover function. This means 15 hours of unused gaming time can be used in the following month. If you hit the 100 hour limit and get through any rollover hours, you have to continue as a Free tier user.
Also, existing customers or customer joining before 31st December 2024 can continue to use GeForce Now without limits throughout 2025.
The Bad News
The bad news is, well there’s a limit being applied to an extremely expensive Premium tier plan. I couldn’t imagine paying €21.99 for Netflix and after binging a series being told I have to wait until next month.
This comparison isn’t all that unfair either. While the hardware needed for gaming is high end, the sheer quantity of people streaming video is far more demanding for a company like Netflix; yet there are no limits like this.
I don’t think I’d ever hit 100 hours of gaming in a month. I’d be surprised if I even hit 8 hours straight for a single session if I’m honest. But it just doesn’t sit right with me that the customer is being hit with this limit instead of Nvidia beefing up their infrastructure to handle more customers.
GeForce Now is a mixed bag of pros and cons in a space that’s relatively new and a challenge to make work for customers while making money for a company. Nvidia are going to have to try and work out what works and what doesn’t work for customers. While I don’t personally like this approach to limits, I know myself I’ll almost certainly use this again over Christmas when I just have my MacBook and iPad with me.
