I have seen the future of gaming on my dying MacBook Air. Even though it’s six years old, most of its vents are clogged with gunk-dust, and it’s a grizzled survivor of the Great Tea Spill of 2017, it can now run most PC games with the specs maxed out and somehow not burst into flames. This is all thanks to a new-ish cloud streaming service that will most likely change gaming as we know it.
Cloud streaming is a form of remote computing, one that allows you to broadcast a game from very powerful computer to your own. Your keyboard/mouse inputs control everything on the distant screen. On your own system, you only need enough power to handle video playback, and a fast internet connection. Overall, think of it as outsourcing your computer power.
Specifically, the cloud service I’ve been using is Nvidia’s GeForce Now. It’s currently in beta, and free if you manage to snag an invite, plus the cost of whatever games you buy and access through your Steam account. Based on one guerilla test of its technical capabilities conducted by a valiant Redditor, it seems to be able to beam the power of a high-end gaming PC directly onto my MacBook.
It’s one of several similar services being developed by a number of corporations that are tossing unsettling amounts of money and resources at the idea, fighting for potential future dominance. If you sort of casually follow gaming news, you’ve probably already heard of Google’s offering, called Stadia (currently with a Nov 2019 release date), or Microsoft’s xCloud (coming sometime in 2020). Plus many others with names that sound made-up, like Cloudzen’s GameCloud, Rainway, and something called LOUDPLAY (AHHH!!!!).
So far, I’ve used GeForce Now to stream Apex Legends, Fortnite, Mordhau, Rust, CS:GO, Hitman 2, and The Forest. They all perform surprisingly well. Mostly, it feels weird to be playing anything on an old shitty laptop. Games typically require pretty intense hardware to run smoothly. And yet my MacBook, which usually starts melting down if I have too many browser tabs open simultaneously, never flinches. In fact, it’s eerily quiet.
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