As discussed by our very own Sean Riley in a recent article about how Nvidia solved Apple’s gaming problem (not that they care), Nvidia is now rolling out these new servers over the coming weeks and months, with most of them going online by the end of Q1. Ahead of its release, I got some hands-on time with it, and it truly is the cloud gaming experience that proved the concept is the future. With support for ray tracing, DLSS3, 240 FPS FHD and even 4k at 120 FPS, I was super excited to go online and jump in.
GNF Ultimate gaming experience
Thanks to Nvidia’s AV1 encoding that saves bandwidth, my gaming experience was fast, with no noticeable latency. It was like using my gaming console and compared favorably to a gaming laptop. I was playing the GhostRunner demo and was blown away by how silky smooth and responsive it was. The other cool feature is Ultimate’s ability to churn out an ultra-widescreen gaming experience. I played GhostRunner on a 34-inch 4K monitor running at 60Hz. Honestly, the resolution was stunning, the colors perfectly saturated, and there was no noticeable latency or frame loss that I could see. Also, I was shocked by how fast it all worked because I am using an older first-generation wireless router with a 5GHz connection that was also broadcasting signal to our home television as my Fiance was watching a movie. Not a glitch, skitter, or laggy performance to report. All of this beautiful gaming was happening while my M1 MacBook Pro 13-inch was connected to two 4K monitors, with one being used for the game and the other for work. Let me repeat that — you can play AAA games on your MacBook, while doing other things. This is bonkers, but there’s more!
GNF Ultimate on other devices
As mentioned in our managing editors’ article, you can enjoy GNF Ultimate on multiple devices and to the chagrin of our Editor in Chief, yes, you can now enjoy an amazing gaming experience on an Android-powered device such as a tablet, and Chromebooks. You can even game on smartphones using the new Nvidia Ultimate servers and enjoy the same blazing-fast speeds, low latency, and high frame rates. So I took out my OnePlus 10 Pro, downloaded GNF, signed on, and played GhostRunner on it, and the experience was just as good. I was speechless. Now, am I a good gamer? No, I’m not, but GNF Ultimate beckons you to want to game because it’s so easy and quick to set up. Nvidia’s new GNF Ultimate allows you to enjoy console and near gaming laptop level gaming just about anywhere on many of the devices you currently own that you might not have ever used to game on before, like an Android tablet, which I tried, and yup, works wonderfully.
Outlook
Sure, GeForce Now Ultimate (opens in new tab) does cost $20 a month, but you can save a little cash if you buy a 6-month plan at $16.67. Imagine not having to shell out the $1,500 plus average price tag of a good gaming laptop, or the $500 that an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 will cost you. Also, you’re not forced to own a certain console or laptop to enjoy the games you want to play. That alone creates great value all on its own. Being able to game at a high level, using multiple devices you already own for just $20 a month is actually a bargain. Nvidia’s working furiously over the next few months on fully rolling out the new GeForce RTX 4080 servers. But after actually getting to game using this latest technological breakthrough, I can’t wait to battle friends, family, and strangers while using my MacBook Pro, or smartphone, or maybe I will use my tablet, thanks to Nvidia’s GNF Ultimate, the options are endless.
