At Gamescom this past year, Nvidia announced that its GeForce Now service would be getting some big upgrades. The headline was that the Ultimate tier would be getting equipped with RTX 5080 cards for some games, which were previously limited to using RTX 4080 cards. There were also some other upgrade announcements that were interesting, even if they were only going to be limited to those in certain tiers. Ahead of the upgrade launch, we had the chance to check it out, and we came back with some interesting results.

The first thing of note is that the service still seems to have issues dealing with gamers who have very large Steam libraries. Nvidia provided a list of titles that had access to the RTX 5080 card, and initially, the only games that worked there were titles not on Steam — with the exception of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Going through the list again and, without making any changes, the games started to work without any issues before reverting back to a non-working state on another gaming session. It almost feels like a crapshoot as to whether the service wants to work with large Steam libraries.

The main upgrade is the presence of the RTX 5080, and for the games that do support it, there are a few key pieces of tech to heighten the overall experience. DLSS 4 is now a selectable option for games that support it, and the games that also support the Transformer model of DLSS support that technology as well. The streaming uses AV1 instead of H.265, which is supposed to provide good picture quality while using less bandwidth.

It is actually difficult to discern any difference between games using the RTX 5080 and the old RTX 4080. As shown in reviews of the card, the performance difference between both video cards isn't that huge, so there isn't going to be a massive performance difference on games like Black Myth: Wukong and Grounded 2. This is especially true when streaming games, since frame rate caps were present in the first place, so differences in performance are minor at best. The real game-changer is DLSS 4; the upscaling still looks good when streaming, and it becomes difficult to tell the difference between native and upscaled image quality. Frame generation doesn't incur enough of a latency penalty when streaming, especially if you're using a controller, so you're less likely to feel it as when you're running frame generation locally. It's a nice feature, since the upgrade doesn't come with a price increase to the service.

Looking into the client options, players will notice two more streaming quality options available. The first is the presence of what Nvidia calls Cinematic Quality Streaming, which increases bandwidth usage in favor of better picture quality — all while keeping the gameplay responsive. Again, trying to look for a difference in most games is going to be difficult, since the image quality is already good, but vegetation is where the feature becomes impressive since the grasses and other plants don't look crushed by any macroblocking from streaming compression. The opening areas of the Continent in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and the main overworld in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered show this off very well; you can see individual grass blades and leaves quite clearly.

The second option is Low Latency Streaming, which drops streaming resolution in favor of higher frame rate responsiveness. I tested this on a few games like Counter-Stike 2, Warframe, and Overwatch 2. I am far from sensitive enough to notice any frame rate differences when playing, but the games didn't feel like they were susceptible to lag. I'm not a good player in any of these games except for Warframe, but I also didn't fare any worse when playing via the service. It works fine enough but still seems like it was made for very competitive players who primarily dabble in e-sports games but need something to work with in a pinch.

One of the more interesting additions to the service is Install-To-Play. The idea is that this is a workaround for games that have already opted in for Steamworks Cloud Gaming but haven't officially joined GeForce Now. The game is still streaming, but this means that you'll need storage on the GeForce Now servers so the game can reside there before it can be streamed. Both the Ultimate and Performance tiers come with 100GB of storage, but it's only there for that one gaming session, so you'll always spend some of your game time installing the game, but the downloads to the server are fast enough that the process doesn't feel too bad. You can have more persistent storage, but that can add between $2.99 to $7.99 per month to the bill, depending on if you want between 200GB to 1TB of storage, respectively.

The good news is that the act of adding your existing eligible games is just as easy as adding games that don't need to go through the Install-To-Play process. Going into your Settings and doing a Stem Sync will automatically add any eligible Install-To-Play title in your library. There's also a wide variety of titles in this section, which includes cult indie hits like 1000xResist and Crow Country and older games like Hitman: Codename 47 and Sin Gold. As of now, there are 4,697 titles that fit this category, but it remains to be seen how quickly the game count can grow in this area.

The bad news is that there's a good chance that you can't actually use this feature. In my case, I tried this with Zool Redimensioned. When I went to install the game, the service asked me to log in. I used the Steam app on my phone to log in, and after answering a few questions, I was refused access because I'm located in San Diego while the server PC was located in Virginia. Considering how valuable security is for one's Steam account, people would rather forgo using the Install-To-Play feature rather than open up any risks for their whole Steam game library and account.

Another issue that's less impactful is the fact that all of your Install-To-Play games are marked with a "Play" button even if you haven't installed the title yet. The service will then try to run the game and come back with an error that says the game won't run before finally giving you the Install button. This issue can be circumvented if you check the game details first because the Install button will immediately appear. It's not a very big issue compared to the Steam account issue, but it's still annoying.

For handheld gaming in particular, the service is now boasting 90fps support for those with a Steam Deck OLED. The newly released Lenovo Legion Go S is also getting its own native version of the app with support for 4K and 120fps if you connect the device to an external monitor. If you have the LCD version of the Steam Deck, then you'll still benefit from some games using the RTX 5080, so the upgrades are still meaningful even if you won't notice anything different right away.

Those who are using a Linux distro that isn't SteamOS are once again out of luck, as the Steam Deck app isn't mentioned as working with any other device that doesn't run Valve's OS. However, there may be a bit of hope, as the download we were given contained a Flatpak version of the app. Installing this didn't produce an error, and while the entry in the Steam Client wasn't automatically generated, you can manually add the app to the non-Steam games list. Trying to run the app results in a crash, but the presence of a Flatpak and the lack of errors during installation gives one hope that a native app for all flavors of Linux is in the works.

In the end, the upgrades to the GeForce Now service are welcome, even if some of the options are only useful if you decide to pay a little extra for them. DLSS 4 and the image quality preset for the service produces a very clean picture, while responsiveness is still as good as it was before. That's quite good when you consider that this is all coming without a price increase, persistent online storage notwithstanding. Now they just need to solve the issue with Steam security for Install-To-Play games and the temperamental nature of the service for gamers with large Steam libraries.