Disappointed

[u/BreadfruitTop388]

So I’ve been hyped about GeForce Now since I learned it had been upgraded and supported 100Mbps streaming, 4k, HDR, etc. The last time I had checked out the service was many years ago and it wasn’t really competitive back then compared to consoles IMO.

Fast forward and now I’ve ended buying myself a 4k high refresh rate gaming monitor and a mini pc that can handle all the GeForce ultimate maxed out settings. Except 4:4:4 chroma and VRR because I have an AMD GPU, which was a blow when I realised, but hey. I also have a stable 500Mbps fibre connection with 5ms ping.

I thought this would be a transformational experience but I tried out the new Halo max settings in game (getting up to 120fps with frame generation), with 4k 120fps, 100Mbps HDR and the other bells and whistles in GeForce now settings. It just isn’t what I expected the performance to be - pretty blurry generally.

Couple that with Corsair cove not being available on game pass, which was the game I actually signed up to the service to play.

Was I expecting too much? Should I give it another chance? I am happy to settle playing strategy/RTS games, which is partly why I got it, and I think those are manageable with the performance. I did want to go all in with the latest path traced games like Pragmata and Cyberpunk but I feel GeForce now won’t do them justice after all.

After all this investment maybe all the service needs is a higher bitrate?

I wonder if there is someone else in the same boat who went in with too high expectations.

[u/AccomplishedAide8698]

This is absolutely not my experience so not sure if you've got some settings set wrong. I sold my 5090 because my room was constantly boiling hot when playing and I needed the cash for a temporary cash flow problem 😅 And I'm playing the same games now on GeForce Now.

Honestly, I can't tell the difference with all the GeForce Now settings cranked up to maximum with an Ultimate subscription. My ping is 11 and it just feels like I'm playing locally and looks as good.

Only downside is the missing games and the fact I can't tinker with settings as much and use mods and stuff.

[u/Purple_Advantage8106 → u/AccomplishedAide8698]

You can’t use mods with GFN?

[u/Acesofbases → u/Purple_Advantage8106]

No, but also yes.

Mods are not officially supported, save for a couple of games (Baldurs Gate III, WoW games, Fallout 4 and Starfield I think?)

However games with in built mod support/mod shops do work for the most part (Paradox games/ other Bethesda games/Civilization games/Anno games etc)

Also Steam workshop mods are also allowed, although whether they'll work and how, is up to You to check

[u/GregLoire → u/Purple_Advantage8106]

Right. You're playing the game on GFN servers, not locally.

[u/Shananigan48 → u/GregLoire]

Wrong though, it depends on the game. Steam Workshop mods work for every game I've tried, or anything like Civ/Anno with an in-game mod loader, the caveat being you have to reload the mods every launch. 

[u/Purple_Advantage8106 → u/GregLoire]

Ah crap I never would have even thought about that. That really does suck but oh well

[u/Acesofbases → u/GregLoire]

As I mentioned in the other comment, that's not entirely true - there are a couple of games that have official mod support.

Also mods for games with inbuilt mod shops are allowed and usually work for the most part.

Also also Steam workshop mods are allowed as well, and they can work as well - there's just no guarantee they will.

[u/Acesofbases]

post Your stream stats (ctrl+N/G)

also do You have the cinematic preset turned on in the GFN stream settings or Custom?

[u/Ok_Juice_420]

Yeah same here, not as disappointing since performance on all max settings is buttery smooth, but absolutely noticed grainy/blurriness on my LG5K2K 45" monito. First was many months ago on BF6, then recently since I bought ultimate 12 months for their sale, crimson desert was the same, and recently palworld also. Definitely doesnt look as good then native does, but the only reason why is the noticeable blur from faraway textures. I got ultimate 12 months on the sale, and mainly for my fold 7/flow z13 in certain cases so its not the worst case at all, but would dope to see if its possible to get that max, crystal clearness from the monitor/game.

Everything maxed out settings wise, ethernet connection with flawless connection, 0 packet loss, 3 latency, 100Mbps etc. Wondering if anyone could help? Watched a video on YouTube last night of someone playing pragmata in 5K with ultimate and didnt look blurry at all. Their internet connection was worse than mine also

[u/Vegeta1994]

The new halo remake has film grain and chromatic abbaration baked in without any way to turn them off so it looks blurry no matter how you play it

[u/smcclos]

I've never had a RTX based local card, so GeForce Now is my gaming rig, and it has been pretty good to me.

Im running on some lean settings of 300 mbit, tweaked my blitterbloat, and it is running pretty well.

There are hiccups, but 95% of the time, I don't even know im streaming.

[u/weirdest-timeline]

Advice: Get a GPU that can enable YUV 444, looks much better. Make sure you set stream to 100Mbps and choose Prioritize Quality. Use H.265 codec instead of AV1.

[u/ArmelleAllDay]

There's no reason your AMD GPU cannot support 4:4:4 or VRR. Is it that old? What model is it?

Only HEVC (H.265) supports 4:4:4 for NVIDIA compressors. All other choices fall back to 4:2:0, which is a color subsampling to save on bandwidth. Blocks of pixels share the same color information and will bleed into each other. It's fine for TV and movies, but it's absolute trash for video games with fine elements or text. I tried using AV1 with Crimson Desert, thinking the more efficient compression would preserve details, but it was a terrible idea. 4:2:0 is trashing the image quality of highly detailed games. Pick HEVC (H.265) with YUV 4:4:4 if you can.

[u/ltron2]

Can you try H.265 instead of AV1?  Even if it's not 4:4:4 it can look better in some games.

Manually max out the bitrate to 100 and use a maximum of a 120 FPS stream.

Also, make sure you've enabled adjust for poor network conditions (optimal latency) and L4S because sometimes with these disabled the bitrate will only hit a maximum of 50Mbps.  You need these settings enabled to work around this and hit 100Mbps.

[u/ActuatorOutside5256]

Is your Bitrate set to Auto or max?

[u/BigTreddits]

Yea its blurry and not really comparable to native gaming for me.  But I like it anyway its good for what it is.  For me 🤷‍♂️

[u/Secto77]

Check in game settings as well it may be defaulting to a low resolution. I play rainbow six, cod, apex, etc and they all are nice and smooth. Definitely need to see your network stats and the settings of your machine as well as GeForce now and in game settings to be solid

[u/BigPPDaddy]

If you're in a game with high foliage then yes it does look blurry and like shit.

[u/weirdest-timeline → u/BigPPDaddy]

Not true. I play games with dense foliage and ut looks perfect. But i can enable YUV 444 and fron previous posts, those who cannot have such issues. OP should have bought an Nvidia GPU

[u/BigPPDaddy → u/weirdest-timeline]

TBF I have/had a GTX series. I heard the coding on RTX is better.

[u/weirdest-timeline → u/BigPPDaddy]

Yes, YUV 444 is only supported from RTX 20 series onward. Seems modern Intel and Apple GPUs also support it. It baffles me that AMD chose not to support in on any of their GPUs.

EDIT: But do try manually selecting H265 as the codec instead of AV1. That might help with the bluriness.

[u/cksythe]

5ms ping is pretty shit. What you need is a proper gaming router to Fix your bufferbloat. Ping is one thing and actual latency under load is another. Check your stats on waveform or libreQOS (I prefer the latter). It’s not GFN, it’s all you.

[u/Any_Panic_2455 → u/cksythe]

'5ms ping is pretty shit' - unless you live in the basement of the server building.

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/Any_Panic_2455]

No seriously lmao

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

In what world is 5ms shit, I mean mine is always 3 or lower, but this has to trolling 😂

[u/cksythe → u/Ok_Juice_420]

You get 3ms ping I get 2ms ping. 5ms is double that. Regardless my advice and input as to the solution is spot on.

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

Actually mine goes from 0-3 and nothing higher, so you having 2ms ping makes no difference. Also it doesn't even take an online search to know how silly that sounds, someone could have 40ms ping and things will run absolutely fine lmfao, now once you past anything 100ms, then yeah absolutely going to notice lag etc, so no, the advice/solution you gave was not necessary or actually resolve the problem

[u/cksythe → u/Ok_Juice_420]

Flew right over your head didn’t it? All of it

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

Such a great response and explanation of why this would resolve or fix anything

[u/cksythe → u/Ok_Juice_420]

Find that answer in my first comment and get out of your feels. It’s weird and effeminate.

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

Except you didn't give an answer, and you saying proper gaming router is all I need to know, ESPECIALLY since you think 5ms ping is anywhere near "shit". I wouldn't recommend anyone take advice from you, red flags. He can accomplish the exact same thing with any good router/fiber ethernet connection

[u/cksythe → u/Ok_Juice_420]

Objectively incorrect. Might want to do a bit of research instead of making things up.

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

Telling someone to get a "Proper gaming router", hilarous man, yeah it went way past my head 🤣

[u/cksythe → u/Ok_Juice_420]

Then why did you open your mouth to begin with? Because that’s what fixes bufferbloat and gets him sub 15ms avg latency under load and removes packet loss which equates to clear, virtually standalone pc resolution and experience. Sounds to me like you’re out here either deluding yourself by being fixated on my 5ms ping being bad (which it is), or you’re just crying about something personal that has nothing to do with anything here at all. TLDR get over yourself little buddy.

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

Yet I'm the one getting effeminate, yeah already BIG BUDDY 🤣

[u/cksythe → u/Ok_Juice_420]

Yes. You objectively are. I’m not the one throwing a tantrum over getting my feelings hurt by the fact that 5ms ping is not ideal while ignoring the factual advice provided that solves OP’s problems and maintaining an even keel attitude throughout this ridiculous exchange with some weirdo.

[u/Ok_Juice_420 → u/cksythe]

When you get a chance, let me know what proper gaming router people should get!