A hot potato: Nvidia is making changes to its popular GeForce Now game streaming service, and it's good news and bad news. The welcome change is that those on the $9.99-per-month tier will be able to stream at 1440p and ultrawide resolutions. Unfortunately, Nvidia is introducing a 100-hour monthly playtime cap for paid memberships.
GeForce Now, which lets users stream games they already own on Nvidia GPUs, has two tiers: the $9.99 Priority tier, now renamed as the Performance tier, which offers RTX 3060-comparable GPUs, and the $19.99 per month Ultimate tier that is similar to playing games on an RTX 4080.
Starting this January, Nvidia says it is introducing a 100-hour per month cap on gaming time. Team Green says this will allow the service to continue providing "unparalleled quality and speed – as well as short to no queue times – for all paid members, without increasing membership fees."
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The free tier won't have the cap, but then users are limited to one-hour sessions, less powerful hardware, and often have to endure long waits. Remaining Founders subscribers, who were promised benefits for life as long as they continue paying monthly, will not be subject to the cap.
Nvidia says that this level cap, which is equal to around three hours of gaming every day, will only impact around 6% of GeForce Now users. If you don't use your full time allocation, you can carry over up to 15 hours from one month to the next. And if you do happen to reach 100 hours in a single month, there's the option to buy packs that enable 15 hours of extra playtime. These cost $3 if you're on the Performance tier and $5.99 for those on Ultimate.
Nvidia could be introducing the cap to help pay for the improvements to the Performance tier. Previously limited to 1080p streams, members can now stream at 1440p and in ultrawide resolutions. The company adds that they can also now save their in-game graphics settings across streaming sessions, though that feature has long been part of the settings menu.
Those on the Ultimate tier don't get any benefits, just a playtime cap. Nvida insists this is a good thing as it keep the pricing the same for the foreseeable future.
The new cap comes into effect on January 1, 2025. However, those with a current paid membership subscription and anyone who joins before the end of the year will have unlimited monthly playtime until January 1, 2026, which seems like a smart way of getting people to sign up now.
I personally like the GeForce Now service as it allows me to play games in 4K at high framerates without spending a fortune on a flagship graphics card. Those on the Performance tier have welcomed the addition of 1440p, but anyone who does play more than 100 hours per month isn't too pleased, especially when you consider that Nvidia's revenue for the twelve months ending July 31, 2024 was $96.3 billion.