Nvidia's GeForce Now Boosts Performance with RTX 5080 GPU Upgrade, Expands Game Library

Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service is set for its most significant upgrade in two and a half years this September, with the official integration of its latest Blackwell GPUs. For $20 a month, you'll soon be able to effectively rent a cloud-based RTX 5080, featuring a massive 48GB of memory and DLSS 4 technology. This powerful setup will let you stream your own high-performance PC games to a wide range of devices, including your phone, Mac, PC, TV, set-top box, or Chromebook.

This announcement comes with a few caveats but also includes several other major upgrades, the most notable being "Install-to-Play." Nvidia is reintroducing the ability for users to install games without waiting for the company to officially curate them. According to Nvidia, this single change is expected to instantly double the size of the GeForce Now game library.

You won't be able to install just any PC game you own, but every title that has opted into Valve's Steam Cloud Play will become immediately available for installation. "The moment we activate this feature, you will instantly see 2,352 games appear," Andrew Fear, Nvidia's product marketing director, explained to The Verge. He added that Install-to-Play will allow Nvidia to add many more games and demos to the service on their release dates, as long as the publishers have enabled the feature.

Currently, Steam is the only platform supporting the Install-to-Play feature. Fear noted that many major publishers typically opt in through Valve's distribution network, including companies like Ubisoft, Paradox, Nacom, Devolver, TinyBuild, and CD Projekt Red.

One key limitation is that Install-to-Play games will not launch instantly like the pre-curated titles. You will need to download and install them each time you want to play, unless you subscribe to Nvidia's persistent storage plan, which costs $3 for 200GB, $5 for 500GB, or $8 for 1TB per month. However, installations should be very fast due to the direct link between Nvidia's servers and Valve's Steam servers. When GeForce Now first launched with a similar feature, downloads were significantly faster than typical home internet speeds.

Nvidia is also introducing a new way to utilize your home internet bandwidth. If your connection is sufficient, GFN will now support streaming at 5K resolution (for both standard 16:9 and ultrawide monitors) at 120fps, or up to 360fps at 1080p resolution.

A new optional Cinematic Quality Streaming mode is also being added. Nvidia claims this setting can reduce color bleeding and restore detail in dark and blurry areas of a scene during streaming. To help maintain this enhanced quality, the maximum streaming bitrate has been increased to 100Mbps, up from the previous 75Mbps. (This mode utilizes HDR10 and SDR10 with YUV 4:4:4 chroma sampling, streamed via the AV1 codec, and includes an AI video filter and specific optimizations for clearer text and HUD elements.)

Furthermore, Steam Deck OLED owners will be able to stream games at the device's native 90Hz refresh rate, an improvement from the previous 60Hz cap. LG is also bringing a native GeForce Now app directly to its 4K OLED TVs and 5K OLED monitors—"no Android TV devices, no Chromecast, nothing; it runs directly on the television," Fear stated. Additionally, Logitech racing wheels with haptic feedback are now officially supported.

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The most pressing question is how much real-world performance improvement the cloud-based RTX 5080 will actually deliver, and a definitive answer is not yet available. For one, Nvidia does not guarantee that you will always be assigned an RTX 5080-tier GPU for every gaming session. The company's $20-per-month GFN Ultimate tier will still include RTX 4080-class cards for the foreseeable future.

Fear clarified that this is not a strategic choice but rather a matter of logistics; rolling out the 5080 performance level will take time "as we install the new servers and increase capacity." He also listed a number of popular games that will support the 5080 performance tier from the start, including Apex Legends, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Baldur's Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, Clair Obscur, Cyberpunk 2077, and Doom: The Dark Ages, among others.

Another point to consider is that while Nvidia claims its new Blackwell Superpods can be up to 2.8 times faster for gaming, this figure relies on DLSS 4 generating three AI frames for every native frame (4x MFG), which can introduce additional input lag. Our review of the physical RTX 5080 card found the performance uplift from the RTX 4080 to be less than revolutionary, and latency becomes an even more critical factor when streaming games over the internet.

That being said, both Tom and I have been impressed with GFN's low latency in previous tests. I've successfully parried foes in Expedition 33 and defeated Sekiro bosses using the service. For less demanding games, Nvidia's latency may have improved further this generation through partnerships with ISPs like Comcast, T-Mobile, and BT, which utilize low-latency L4S technology, and the new 360fps mode. The company states this new mode can achieve an end-to-end latency of just 30ms in Overwatch 2, a game where high frame rates are possible without relying on multi-frame generation.

This level of responsiveness can surpass that of a home console—provided you are geographically close to Nvidia's servers and have a stable connection with a ping of around 10ms, which is achievable in areas like the San Francisco Bay Area.

The good news is that you will not pay any extra for the RTX 5080 performance upgrade. The GeForce Now Ultimate subscription will remain priced at $19.99 per month for now. "We have no plans to increase our price," Fear stated during a group briefing. When asked privately about potential future price increases, he could not make guarantees but noted that GFN has historically only adjusted prices due to significant increases in power costs or to rebalance regional currency exchange rates. "Nothing is set in stone, but we currently have no plans for a price increase."

Nvidia is also launching an intriguing new experiment that integrates GeForce Now directly into Discord. This will allow gamers to try new games for free instantly from a Discord server without needing to log into a separate GeForce Now account. Epic Games and Discord are the first partners showcasing this technology at Gamescom this week.

"You can simply click a button labeled 'try a game,' connect your Epic Games account, and immediately jump into the action. You'll be playing Fortnite within seconds, with no downloads or installations required," Fear explained. He clarified to The Verge that this is currently just a "technology announcement," but Nvidia hopes game publishers and developers will express interest in potentially incorporating it into their own titles.

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I am hopeful for this feature, as I have long been fascinated by the potential of try-before-you-buy cloud gaming ever since Gaikai pioneered the concept 15 years ago, though its founder later revealed that publishers were not always receptive to the idea.

I am eager to test the new 5080-class servers when they launch in September, along with the 90Hz mode for the Steam Deck OLED. I am also curious to see if the massive influx of new games through Install-to-Play will finally make the service feel like a true alternative to a traditional gaming console for me. One of my main remaining concerns has been the number of my owned Steam games that are still unavailable on the platform.

On that note, do not expect to see games from publishers like Sony or Rockstar, including titles like Grand Theft Auto, appearing on the service in the near future. "I have no updates on that front. They have chosen not to be on GFN, and you should direct any questions to them," Fear told me.