Nvidia’s GeForce Now, the company's popular online cloud-gaming service, just added native support for Macs, Macbooks, and the new Mac Studio running Apple M1-series processors in its 2.0.40 update, giving Mac users more options for playing the best Mac games.
According to Nvidia, native support means lower power consumption, faster app startup, and an overall better performance. However, M1-based iPad Air and iPad Pros are exceptions, thanks to iOS's App Store policy, which requires that any cloud-gaming services must be run as a web app through Safari.
Another benefit is an improved overlay, which displays the framerate of the current game running on both the server and your end. This is not only useful for diagnostic purposes but may make upgrading to the pricer RTX 3080 (1440p/120 FPS) plan more appealing, since gamers might see the server running a game faster compared to their current plan.
Analysis: Why does cloud-gaming matter?
Cloud-based streaming services for PC gaming seems to be the latest growing trend, especially considering how expensive it is now to build or buy your own personal PC. With a decent internet connection, nearly any rig can run the best PC games or other services for a monthly fee.
Nvidia’s GeForce Now service is a popular option, offering several membership tiers including the Priority 1080p/60 FPS plan and RTX 3080 (1440p/120 FPS) plan. There’s also Shadow, relaunching on May 18, which offers a fully remote gaming PC rather than just the streaming service.
If more companies jump on the trend, we could see a wide variety of cloud-gaming options and the resulting competition would most likely mean prices remaining affordable while the quality of service stays high. And as Shadow’s relaunch could prove (if successful), PC services in general could be offered as well, ranging from OS to other expensive programs.
