The GeForce Now experience is a cloud-based gaming platform that, in essence, links your existing gaming services, such as Steam, Xbox Game Pass and Epic Games Store, and provides cloud-based access to your titles. Previously available on Windows 11 and macOS, NVIDIA has made strides to bring its GeForce Now cloud service to a new audience: the Linux fan base. After about a week of testing the Linux distribution of GeForce Now, it’s time to see whether it truly can be the game-changer it aims to be for Linux gamers.
Perhaps the first question to answer is simple: What is GeForce Now? As mentioned, it is NVIDIA’s paid cloud-based gaming service that gives players access to their gaming libraries through a single, centralized launcher. The beauty of the system is twofold. First, it allows you to play games without installing them on your system, freeing up valuable storage space. Second, your games are powered by the hardware behind the GeForce Now service, essentially allowing you to run them on potentially superior hardware while using your laptop as a gateway to the experience.
It’s a slick system that lets players with lower- to mid-range laptops play their favourite titles powered by a GeForce RTX 5080. While there are practical factors to consider, such as network speeds and the laptop’s base specifications, it is a unique service that allows gamers to access their libraries in new ways. For Linux users, who have long had to find creative solutions to play titles on their favourite distributions, the introduction of a native version of GeForce Now could, quite literally, be a game-changer.
“Your games are powered by the hardware behind the GeForce Now service, essentially allowing you to run them on potentially superior hardware while using your laptop as a gateway to the experience.”
For testing, I partitioned my Windows drive on an HP Owen, which does run a RTX 4060. After installing a copy of Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, I navigated to the GeForce Now site, downloaded the Beta version of Now for Linux and made the file executable. After a brief install and sign-in, all of my games were accessible via the Applications main home screen. It’s a fairly straightforward user experience, simply selecting the game from your library, hitting play and, after a brief loading period, jumping in and picking up where you left off before.
It simply works, with no hassle, extra downloads or third-party software required. It is the GeForce Now experience running natively on Linux. For comparison testing, I installed GeForce Now on a Windows 11 laptop in the office and can say the user experience was identical. Installation, navigation and game access were virtually the same on both systems.
My one small critique of the GeForce Now experience as a whole is that the user interface can feel overwhelming when you first open it. While this does not hinder performance in any way, I would like to see a cleaner interface with improved navigation in future updates. At present, it feels overly busy, which makes finding your games more difficult than it should be.
“It simply works, with no hassle, extra downloads or third-party software required.”
I tested 14 games for this review, and each ran incredibly well, with most indicating they were running on an RTX 5080. Doom: The Dark Ages, for instance, was pushing close to 200 fps through GeForce Now, a feat I have not been able to achieve natively on the Omen. Every game ran without issue, and I did not experience a single crash during testing.
The only real caveat to this experience, as with any streaming service, is network connectivity. Thankfully, where our office is located, we have fibre internet with a fairly robust network, which resulted in consistently smooth frame rates. Even on my home network, using an average modem and router, I only once or twice noticed a dip in frame rates. That had more to do with both my kids updating their game libraries while I was testing. Aside from this minor issue, testing was consistently smooth and impressive.
For Linux users, the GeForce Now experience could be a game-changer, especially if you want to run resource-intensive titles on your Linux system. While there are ways to get games running on Linux, the ease of access provided by the GeForce Now service simplifies the process and requires no extra setup on the part of the user. While opinions on cloud-based gaming vary widely, what NVIDIA has created with the GeForce Now experience is slick, performs well and offers a level of gaming, particularly for Linux users, that has not historically been available.
The GeForce Now for Linux experience is one that has impressed me. Its seamless integration into the Linux ecosystem provides one of the best and easiest gaming experiences I’ve tried on Linux. While cloud gaming may not be for everyone, it delivers an impressive experience for those with the network capacity to support it. If you are a Linux gamer looking for a streamlined, easy-to-use gaming experience, NVIDIA has nailed it with GeForce Now for Linux.
