Nvidia Now’s GeForce Now gaming service is available on Chromebooks

I just played Death Stranding on the beat of my wife’s Samsung Chromebook Plus. That’s because Nvidia just made it possible to do that with its GeForce Now cloud streaming service, which launched today in beta for Chrome OS. While native gaming is not necessarily a strong suit of Chrome OS, support for Google’s Stages and GeForce Now means you can probably access many of the games in your back catalog from the cloud, wherever you are with your Chromebook. Nvidia keeps tabs on supported games here.

Assuming that, you assume you have one that is enough to deliver a decent experience, along with a mouse or gamepad that is packed for good measure, because Chromebook trackpads are not usually great.

What’s cool about the beta is that Nvidia is not in favor of every Chromebook user going to play.geforcenow.com and trying it out for themselves, though the company does offer some recommended specs that it says will provide a good experience:

• CPU: Intel Core M3 (seventh gen or later) as a Core i3, i5, as i7 processor
• GPU: Intel HD graphics 600 or higher
• RAM: 4GB or higher
• Plus at least 15 Mbps internet (25 Mbps recommended)

In addition, it shared a bundle of models that Nvidia has internally tested and confirmed to deliver a good experience. It is worth noting that some of these do not match the recommended specs in each department:

• Acer Chromebook 15 CB3-532-C4ZZ
• Acer Chromebook 715 * 1
• Acer Chromebook Spin 13
• Asus C101P Flip
• Asus Flip C302CA
• Asus Chromebook Flip C434 *
• Google PixelBook
• Google PixelBook Go
• HP Chromebook x360 *
• Lenovo Yoga Chromebook C630
• Samsung Chromebook 3
• Samsung Chromebook Plus *
• Samsung Chromebook XE350XBA (Chromebook 4) *
• HP 15-de0517wm *

(Note: the asterisk shows models where Nvidia says that voice chat is not recommended)

I spent time testing the beta on our 2017 Chromebook Plus, which stretches the line in terms of meeting the recommended specs. It has a stunning 2400 x 1600 resolution 3: 2 aspect ratio display that still looks fantastic today, and it meets the 4GB RAM requirement. But I was more than a little worried about its Rockchip OP1 ARM processor, even though it was optimized for Chrome OS at the time, as my colleague Dieter Bohn dug it out.

I have checked short Death Stranding en Rocket League via Steam and Control via the Epic Games Store to see how everyone looked and walked. I have pretty fast internet (250Mbps down, 25Mbps up), and since I’m home, I’m pretty close to our Wi-Fi router. My experience was better than I expected from our then- $ 350 Chromebook.

Once I went to the front of the queue for a virtual rig and was booted into every game, the performance was amazing. In general, the games I tested seemed to swing between 40 and 50 frames per second. It was not a consistent, smooth 60 frames per second that I like to watch. However, with a gamepad included and headphones on, I sometimes forget that I streamed games over the cloud. Charging times were usually very fast, and the games themselves looked good at their recommended graphics settings.

Figuratively speaking, the input delay of my wired Nintendo Switch Pro controller became noticeable all my time with testing GeForce Now on Chrome OS. It was less of an issue in Control, where the moves are a bit slower, but it was kind of a deal-breaker in Rocket League, especially if you play online matches. I should again note that I played exclusively via Wi-Fi, which Nvidia does not suggest anyone do when trying to get the best results. I probably would have had an even better experience in terms of input delay and visual fidelity if I had an Ethernet to USB-C adapter.

One nitpick as one that used a 3: 2 aspect ratio display: it was difficult to get each match to fit my screen resolution. Nvidia’s GeForce Now settings let me adjust my preference resolution to a 16:10 aspect ratio, which reduced the black bars I saw with the standard 16: 9 aspect ratio presentation. That was about as good as it got, and for a temporary ‘game while I’m off my PC’ experience, that’s good enough for me. If your Chromebook has a 16: 9 screen aspect ratio (most do), you should not need to make any adjustments.

I would like to test the service on a more capable machine, such as the new Acer Chromebook Spin 713, and a weaker one, such as the Samsung Chromebook 3 which came out in 2016. It goes without saying that more powerful hardware will make for a better experience, but I’m envious of how low you can go in price and still get relatively smooth gameplay.

You can join the service for free, although each game will take a few minutes to boot into, and sessions will end at one o’clock each. If you have a Chromebook, give it a try and let us know in the comments what your experience was like.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge