Looks like NVIDIA might be ready for the next push in cloud gaming with their GeForce NOW service, as it's even easier to run it on Linux. What is it? GeForce NOW allows you to play games you already digitally own on other platforms, on whatever device you have available. It hooks in with Steam, EA / Origin, Epic Games and more.
Back in August, NVIDIA officially opened it up to Chromebooks by letting people playing with it in the browser. For everyone else, it needed you to spoof your user agent string to act like it was a Chromebook. It was a small thing but still a minor nuisance. That now, appears to no longer be needed.
With nothing more than Chromium installed on Linux (plain Chrome works too, other browsers vary), GeForce NOW appears to just work. Here's a video to show just how easy it now is:
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Direct Link
Direct Link
It makes sense they would roll this out to more people, as it does then make it more of a proper competitor to Stadia too. It reduces a barrier for their service, since pretty much everyone will have a web browser and not everyone wants to download yet another app for launching games. Having it in the browser really does open it up to more people and more platforms (like Linux!). Just keep in mind this might not be intentional from NVIDIA, however going back to using the user agent spoofing will get you going again if they move to lock it down once again.
Head over to play.geforcenow.com if you wish to try it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments
Hi Liam, how is the input lag?Well, it's there but like I find with Stadia it's very minimal and enjoyable. However, local play is still better of course.
1 Likes, Who?
Never tried that, now i did and to my surprise, it seems that since you start a game from geforce now, you can actually use your local steam itself (instead of the browser) to stream the game.
Actually you will have double audio, i just mute chromium.
Why? Because that way you can use a controller, works well and rumble works as well.
Unfortunately, out of my 450+ steam games, only 43 are available.
Actually you will have double audio, i just mute chromium.
Why? Because that way you can use a controller, works well and rumble works as well.
Unfortunately, out of my 450+ steam games, only 43 are available.
1 Likes, Who?
Never tried that, now i did and to my surprise, it seems that since you start a game from geforce now, you can actually use your local steam itself (instead of the browser) to stream the game.
Actually you will have double audio, i just mute chromium.
Why? Because that way you can use a controller, works well and rumble works as well.
Unfortunately, out of my 450+ steam games, only 43 are available.
That's weird, for me and my PlayStation 3 controller it works in ungoogled-chromium and lutris web version.
0 Likes
ShinyaOsen Sep 16, 2020
Brave didnt work for me so i just use chromium and most game that are available for me work on linux already or im not interested in playing right now wish phantasy star online 2 was available so wouldnt have to go in to windows to play with my friends
0 Likes
Never tried that, now i did and to my surprise, it seems that since you start a game from geforce now, you can actually use your local steam itself (instead of the browser) to stream the game.
Actually you will have double audio, i just mute chromium.
Why? Because that way you can use a controller, works well and rumble works as well.
Unfortunately, out of my 450+ steam games, only 43 are available.
That's weird, for me and my PlayStation 3 controller it works in ungoogled-chromium and lutris web version.
Mmh, i'll have to try without steam running, thanks.
0 Likes
I confirm that it is working from Vivaldi browser as well without any magic. Surprisingly it is available in my country (Hungary) but lagging as hell... (Tried Fortnite only.)
1 Likes, Who?
I confirm that it is working from Vivaldi browser as well without any magic. Surprisingly it is available in my country (Hungary) but lagging as hell... (Tried Fortnite only.)
Try it at night, like 5 in the morning or something close, is the best way to test as there is less people online.
1 Likes, Who?
too little too late for us.
sure, we can play another subset of windows games, but that isnt enough reason for people to migrate to linux...
and now that ms turned linux into an middleware with WSL, making softwares exclusively for linux wont help either.
now i'm happy that i will be able to play my games on, shit, the niche stuff that i want to play wont work >.>
and GFN isnt avaliable on my country...
sure, we can play another subset of windows games, but that isnt enough reason for people to migrate to linux...
and now that ms turned linux into an middleware with WSL, making softwares exclusively for linux wont help either.
now i'm happy that i will be able to play my games on, shit, the niche stuff that i want to play wont work >.>
and GFN isnt avaliable on my country...
0 Likes
too little too late for us.Unless and until we already have for other reasons market share around say 20% and many things change, from the start nobody was ever going to migrate to Linux because of games. The hope was always that games on Linux get close enough that it will be easy to migrate to Linux for other reasons and not be seriously held back by games. We're pretty close there; arguably if Proton gets anti-cheat working we'll be near enough parity for everyone except really hard core gamers.
sure, we can play another subset of windows games, but that isnt enough reason for people to migrate to linux...
and now that ms turned linux into an middleware with WSL, making softwares exclusively for linux wont help either.
now i'm happy that i will be able to play my games on, shit, the niche stuff that i want to play wont work >.>
and GFN isnt avaliable on my country...
Then if Adobe stuff works smoothly on Wine/Proton, we're golden for about everything else.
Of course no matter what we do nothing will happen if there isn't some kind of push for preinstalled desktop or Steam Machine Linux. We're not going to pass 2% on people taking the initiative to replace their preinstalled OS all by themselves. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily have to be established companies. If the likes of System76 grow to become titans of industry with massive sales and placement in Wal-Mart, that works too.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 16 September 2020 at 3:17 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
too little too late for us.Unless and until we already have for other reasons market share around say 20% and many things change, from the start nobody was ever going to migrate to Linux because of games. The hope was always that games on Linux get close enough that it will be easy to migrate to Linux for other reasons and not be seriously held back by games. We're pretty close there; arguably if Proton gets anti-cheat working we'll be near enough parity for everyone except really hard core gamers.
sure, we can play another subset of windows games, but that isnt enough reason for people to migrate to linux...
and now that ms turned linux into an middleware with WSL, making softwares exclusively for linux wont help either.
now i'm happy that i will be able to play my games on, shit, the niche stuff that i want to play wont work >.>
and GFN isnt avaliable on my country...
Then if Adobe stuff works smoothly on Wine/Proton, we're golden for about everything else.
Of course no matter what we do nothing will happen if there isn't some kind of push for preinstalled desktop or Steam Machine Linux. We're not going to pass 2% on people taking the initiative to replace their preinstalled OS all by themselves. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily have to be established companies. If the likes of System76 grow to become titans of industry with massive sales and placement in Wal-Mart, that works too.
Seems to me that the real tidal shift would be companies and institutions moving away from MS Office. To this day even with Office 365 there's features that organizations rely on that can only be found inside of the native desktop version of Office (i.e. VBA macros in Excel and elsewhere, certain media features of PowerPoint, etc.)
The interesting thing here with MS at this point is that they certainly leverage this dependency on Office to force an additional license fee for their OS, but that only encourages companies to explore alternatives. And really the amount of money they make in corporate licensing fees pales in comparison to the amount of money they could be making from app store fees if the Windows Marketplace every really caught on.
In a lot of ways they've been following Google's lead for a while: starting their own search engine, trying (and failing) to move into the mobile space, focusing on services and advertising over traditional licensing, etc.
If they ever feel comfortable enough with their success I could see them eventually releasing Windows 10 free of charge (maybe even as FOSS for that matter) simply to expand their ad network and app store presence. At that point there'd be no reason not to port MS Office to other platforms. Furthermore, what would be the point of maintaining MS Windows at all? They could just push out their own GNU/Linux distro (that they already have) and save on development cost.
Maybe one of these days we'll even just quietly see MS Windows still a thing, but under the hood it's a GNU/Linux distro. Meanwhile MS Office will be a strictly SaaS-based platform and most of Microsoft's revenue will come through Azure and similar cloud-based premium services/systems and advertising. Everybody will be using some kind of Unix-like system on their desktop, just like they do presently on mobile, but the average joe wouldn't notice or care.
Kind of a strange world we're entering.
Last edited by Shaolu on 16 September 2020 at 4:05 pm UTC
0 Likes
Kuduzkehpan Sep 17, 2020
SO much network consuming. Lutris+LoL spends maximum 150mb data per match. But GFN + LoL almost 400mb. And of course input lags not smooth for gaming experience.
Also in case of OS'es future will be taken by Google's Open Source OS "Fuscia os"
Also in case of OS'es future will be taken by Google's Open Source OS "Fuscia os"
0 Likes
I'm happy to see this as another possible option since Baldur's Gate 3 is really tempting me to use a streaming service. I am hoping it works via Proton soon after release, but if GeForce NOW enables me to play the Steam version of the game, it lessens the risk of purchase a bit.
Looks like I should start a habit of going to the Epic Store and claiming a free game every month so that I have a library to play if I subscribe to GeForce NOW.
Looks like I should start a habit of going to the Epic Store and claiming a free game every month so that I have a library to play if I subscribe to GeForce NOW.
0 Likes
It works well here at my end, but having some issues with keybindings, as GFN service intercepts the Esc which makes several titles practically unplayable. I also have some issues with right mouse button while on vivaldi, which makes Rocket League unplayable.
Are there any keyboard shortcuts to solve the escape key issue?
Are there any keyboard shortcuts to solve the escape key issue?
0 Likes
All I ever get from GFN after trying to start a game is "There was a problem starting your session. Try again." This is the same whether I'm using the GFN wrapper or Chromium. So I'm happy I can now view this message in a new way :)
0 Likes
I regret to say that neither "Geforce Now" or the Linux "User Spoofing Agent" are available for Ubuntu/Firefox from nVidia on their web site! All I got was the message "This device or browser is not currently supported by Geforce NOW." with a link to show which device it supports!
I downloaded the ¨Google Chrome" under Ubuntu and "Geforce Now" does work; the only problem id that it supports only Steam and Epic games and most of my games are from GoG (54 from Steam vs 211 from GoG, including a few duplicates!)
RD
I downloaded the ¨Google Chrome" under Ubuntu and "Geforce Now" does work; the only problem id that it supports only Steam and Epic games and most of my games are from GoG (54 from Steam vs 211 from GoG, including a few duplicates!)
RD
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