GeForce NOW: high-performance cloud gaming.

GeForce NOW Ultimate: how I rediscovered video gaming on my MacBook Pro M1

I am (no longer) a PC gamer.
For years, I mainly played on consoles. I notably owned a PS4, but over time I realized I was only playing in bursts. Some months I could chain long gaming sessions, then not touch a controller for several weeks. At some point, the PS4 mostly gathered dust, so I eventually sold it.

Since then, my only computer has been a MacBook Pro M1. An excellent machine for work, but not really the kind you think of when talking about video games.

Still, a few months ago, I started feeling the urge to play again, especially with the release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.

The problem was simple: I had neither a recent console nor a gaming PC. That’s when I started looking into GeForce NOW Ultimate.

And honestly, I didn’t expect to be this convinced.

Why cloud gaming fits my profile

Today, I am a casual gamer.

I play when I feel like it and when I have free time. I can go several weeks without launching a game, then suddenly feel like spending a few evenings on a new adventure. I’m also a parent, which means my free time is more limited than it used to be.

Under these conditions, investing several hundred or even thousands of euros in a dedicated gaming machine didn’t really make sense for me.

What I was mainly looking for was a simple solution:

• launch a game quickly
• avoid buying new hardware
• enjoy the latest games without dealing with technical considerations

On paper, GeForce NOW seemed to match these needs.

A first experience that almost ended badly

I’m going to be completely honest: my early experience with GeForce NOW was very disappointing. During my first sessions, the game was extremely stuttery. The image wasn’t smooth, and the experience was bad enough that I immediately thought:

“This is what cloud gaming is, then.”

I was close to giving up on it entirely.

Fortunately, I started looking through forums and came across several MacBook Pro M1 users mentioning issues related to Bluetooth. I decided to try something very simple: completely disabling Bluetooth.

And that’s when everything changed. The stuttering disappeared, and the smoothness became excellent. It felt like I was using a completely different service. Without that discovery, my opinion of GeForce NOW would have been totally different.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II: forgetting you’re playing in the cloud

Once that issue was resolved, I launched Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.

And that’s probably where I understood the real potential of cloud gaming. The game is visually stunning and particularly demanding. Yet, on my simple MacBook Pro M1, I was getting an extremely smooth experience.

My sessions typically ran at:

• 90 FPS
• 8–10 ms ping
• no packet loss
• no dropped frames

But beyond the numbers, what stood out to me was much simpler: after a few minutes, I had completely forgotten that the game was running on a remote server. I was just playing.

I should point out that to get good gaming conditions, you obviously need an excellent internet connection (fiber).

Counter-Strike 2: the real test

For me, the real test was Counter-Strike 2.

In a single-player RPG, you can sometimes tolerate a bit of latency. In a competitive FPS, it’s much more difficult. I expected to immediately feel the limitations of cloud gaming.

Yet, with a ping around 8 ms and a stable connection, I never felt at a disadvantage.

I’m not a professional player, and I don’t claim to have the level needed to detect the slightest millisecond of delay. However, I do know how to recognize a pleasant experience. And in Counter-Strike 2, I simply had fun.

The 100-hour monthly limit: a non-issue for me

One of the points that often comes up when talking about GeForce NOW Ultimate is the 100-hour monthly playtime limit. On paper, this can seem restrictive, especially when compared to a personal machine that obviously imposes no such constraint.

In my case, it doesn’t really worry me. First, because I’m a casual gamer, and with my current lifestyle, reaching 100 hours already represents a lot of gaming time (about 3h30 per day). Second, because I don’t exclusively play the most demanding titles.

When I feel like taking a break between two sessions of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II or another AAA game, I often go back to classics like League of Legends or World of Warcraft. These games run perfectly on my MacBook Pro M1 without needing GeForce NOW. So I can easily alternate between cloud gaming for the most demanding titles and local gaming for games that already run well on my machine.

Ultimately, this limit doesn’t change much in my usage. And even if I were to get close to it in some months, I always have the option of splitting my time between GeForce NOW and games that run natively on my Mac. For my player profile, it feels like a perfectly reasonable compromise.

What I appreciate most today

What I like most about GeForce NOW is ultimately neither the graphics quality nor the performance. It’s the simplicity.

I don’t have a recent console, I don’t have a gaming PC — I only own a MacBook Pro M1.

And yet, I can launch Kingdom Come: Deliverance II or Counter-Strike 2 in just a few clicks and play in excellent conditions.

A small bonus: since your computer isn’t actually running anything locally, it doesn’t heat up, which feels very strange at first!

For someone who plays when they feel like it, in bursts, without wanting to invest in expensive hardware, it’s an extremely appealing proposition.

My verdict

Before trying GeForce NOW Ultimate, I was convinced that cloud gaming was still a compromise technology.

Today, I see things differently.

I’m not saying this solution will replace a gaming PC for everyone, and YES it is clearly not cost-effective in the long run, but for someone like me — a former console gamer, now equipped only with a MacBook Pro M1, who plays occasionally and has limited free time — the experience is more than up to my expectations.

What’s probably the most impressive is that after a few minutes of playing, I completely forget that everything is running in the cloud. And that is probably the best proof that the technology has reached maturity.