Valve’s beloved Steam Deck is a pleasant little machine that makes PC gaming doable anyplace, but it surely suffers from some important limitations. The Deck’s customized AMD Ryzen “Aerith” processor requires extreme graphical sacrifices to hit playable body charges in intense video games — for those who can run them in any respect. When you’re taking part in, you’ll blow via the battery in only a few hours. And whereas non-Steam video games can be added to the Deck, it requires wonky technical workarounds that normie players most likely received’t trouble to troubleshoot.
Enter Nvidia’s new GeForce Now native app for the Steam Deck, introduced at the moment and accessible instantly.
If your web sign is robust, and also you pay for a premium GeForce Now subscription with superior prowess and options, Nvidia’s app transforms the Steam Deck from a pleasant machine into an completely magical one.
How magical? Consider that Doom: The Dark Ages has been called a “nightmare” on the Steam Deck. Even with each graphics possibility turned to low, taking part in via the sparsely populated tutorial part ends in body charges within the low- to mid-20s — it not solely seems to be ugly, it feels atrocious, just like the Doom Slayer is a container ship you’re attempting to steer whereas blackout drunk. Hard cross.
Then I flipped over to it on GeForce Now’s new Steam Deck app, utilizing an early construct (and GFN Ultimate subscription) offered by Nvidia. Oh. My. God. Suddenly, all the things was stunning and clean, with the Doom Slayer ripping and tearing via demonic hordes just like the finely tuned weapon he’s. Even with graphics settings set to the strenuous Nightmare stage and rays being traced all over the place, efficiency ran locked on the 60fps most that GFN provides on the Deck.
Doom: The Dark Ages runs like butt on Steam Deck — but it surely streams amazingly over GeForce Now, even with Nightmare graphics settings.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
GeForce Now actually made an unplayable recreation deliciously perky. But that’s not the one profit: With my Steam Deck’s battery life lingering round 86 p.c, the system’s efficiency overlay estimated I’d get round an hour and 44 minutes of play time earlier than juice ran out. Streaming the sport over GFN doesn’t faucet into the Steam Deck’s assets practically as closely, and the efficiency overlay stated the very same scene with the very same battery stage would ship over 7 hours of playtime.
Wowza. Now that’s transformative — although Nvidia solely formally claims battery-life enhancements of “up to 50 percent” over native Steam Deck efficiency.
GeForce Now on Steam Deck: Amazing efficiency and battery life
And Doom: The Dark Ages isn’t the one instance. I additionally fired up Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a pair of CD Projekt Red’s heavy hitters that include native Steam Deck graphics settings.
In a bustling Novigrad Square teeming with NPCs, Witcher 3 achieved surprisingly playable body charges — I used to be cruising round with Geralt to the tune of 50- to 60fps. Not unhealthy! …although the graphics regarded muddier than I’d favor, and the battery solely anticipated to final round two hours.
Witcher 3 runs wonderful on Steam Deck natively — however have a look at how low-quality the visuals are with a purpose to obtain playable efficiency.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
Then I booted into Witcher 3 through GeForce Now. What a distinction. Using the sport’s Ultra settings with ray tracing in full bloom, Geralt immediately regarded a lot crisper and vivid — and as soon as once more, the sport performed locked at 60fps on GFN Ultimate’s {hardware} (equal to an RTX 4080), with a runtime estimate of over 7 hours. Transformative!
The story remained the identical in Cyberpunk 2077, which features a Steam Deck graphics preset that drops visuals low sufficient to run at a locked 30fps. It’s muddy however playable! Streaming over GeForce Now, nevertheless, lets me run the sport’s attractive RT Ultra mode at a locked 60fps whereas wanting crisp, clear, and much more responsive. (The in-game benchmark stated the Steam Deck mode ran at locked 30fps; RT Ultra over GFN ran at 86fps per the benchmark, however Nvidia’s servers delivered it as a locked 60fps. Nvidia says a 90fps mode is “being evaluated for future release.”)
Better but, estimated battery life elevated from 1:09 in Steam Deck mode to 4:02 through GeForce Now — all whereas wanting and feeling so a lot better than native efficiency.
GeForce Now performs Steam Deck video games Valve received’t promote you
Another feather within the cap for GeForce Now’s new native Steam Deck app? It helps you to play video games Valve received’t promote you.
The Steam Deck is superb, but it surely’s clearly constructed round Valve’s storefront. Installing non-Steam games on the Deck includes heading to the gadget’s desktop mode and tweaking arcane settings, or putting in third-party apps that (hopefully) automate the method a bit. It’s clunky.
Not with GeForce Now.
You’ve received a number of Alan Wake choices on GeForce Now’s Steam Deck app — together with the Epic-exclusive Alan Wake 2.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
Nvidia’s service helps you to hyperlink your GeForce Now account with main PC gaming storefronts — Steam, sure, but in addition options like Ubisoft, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, and the Epic Games Store. Once you’ve completed so, any of the 2000-plus games supported by GFN will simply be playable by merely trying to find them in Nvidia’s interface and launching the sport.
Want to play Alan Wake 2 (an Epic unique) in your Steam Deck with full constancy? Yeah, the GeForce Now app can do this. Want to stream Forza Horizon via your Game Pass sub? Yeah, you are able to do that too. The GeForce Now library isn’t exhaustive, but it surely is enormous, and provides video games each week. It’s an on the spot level-up on your Steam Deck’s capabilities when you’ve got video games stashed on different PC storefronts too.
Better but, since GFN is now a local app, it’ll seem within the Recently Played part of your Steam Deck’s homescreen — making it useless easy to leap again into video games you’ve streamed through Nvidia’s servers.
GeForce Now for Steam Deck: Details you have to know
Of course, you have to be a GeForce Now subscriber to reap the benefits of the brand new Steam Deck native app. The app helps all tiers, together with the ad-supported free tier, however paying for larger tiers unlocks ad-free streaming, RTX capabilities, larger resolutions, ultrawide monitor help, and — for those who pay for the Ultimate tier – DLSS Frame Gen, Nvidia’s latency-lowering Reflex tech, and HDR10 help that appears oh so good on the Steam Deck OLED that Nvidia despatched me for testing. The paid tiers provide 100 hours of gameplay a month, with 15 rollover hours.
Nvidia is at the moment working a GeForce Now summer sale that knocks 40 p.c off a six month “Performance” plan, all the way down to $30 for six months. It lacks among the options of the Ultimate tier, however ought to ship a wondrous expertise in your Steam Deck, even when Valve’s handheld can’t reap the benefits of its 1440p possibility — GFN streams at 1080p/60 undocked. If you join a monitor to your Steam Deck, GFN can output at 1440p/120Hz, or 4K/60Hz when related to a tv.
As a streaming service, GeForce Now clearly requires a robust web connection. In checks round my house in a small metropolis, it held up effectively over my Comcast dwelling connection, although efficiency generally suffered taking part in within the furthest reaches of my dwelling. Your mileage might range relying on your property community scenario and whether or not you’re tethering off a cell connection, however basically, Nvidia’s streaming service is pretty rock-solid today.
The error message whenever you attempt to use fast resume with a GeForce Now streaming title.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
One tidbit to bear in mind off: Since GeForce Now depends on lively web streaming, it’s incompatible with the Steam Deck’s fast resume perform. If you energy off your Deck mid-GFN stream, it’ll crash when the system wakes again up. I wouldn’t need to depend on GFN for a morning bus commute until your telephone can energy a banging Wi-Fi hotspot.
Just play it
Bottom line, although? Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can remodel your Steam Deck from a low-powered, vendor-locked console right into a full-blow transportable PC gaming expertise, full with no-compromises ray tracing and a elegant uplift in each visuals and really feel. Playing Doom: The Dark Ages is a nightmare on the Steam Deck — but it surely’s heavenly streaming to your Steam Deck through GeForce Now. Expanded recreation help and drastic battery life enhancements nearly really feel like cherries on high of the expertise, however they’re simply as essential to the GFN app’s Steam Deck success.
In an age the place graphics card costs are hovering and the PC market shivers around damning tariffs, Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can elevate the Steam Deck from a kick-ass sidekick to your major gaming PC. That’s particularly so for those who dock your Deck with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, however the wildly lengthy battery life makes it true in handheld mode, too.
You ought to completely, positively give the GeForce Now app a obtain in your Steam Deck. It’s damned close to vital accent if you wish to play extra strenuous fashionable video games. Even for those who solely give the free ad-supported tier a whirl, it ought to present sufficient oomph to get you thru the brand new Doom — one thing the Deck itself isn’t able to by itself. Giddy up!