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Until now, you could only stream Nvidia GeForce NOW games via Chrome in 1080p. For any fan of cloud gaming, this has been a potential drawback. Services like Stadia streamed in 4k resolution, but now that that’s pretty much dead, it would seem the competition has decided to step up its game – literally.
In what seems to be a very specifically coordinated effort with Google’s latest cloud gaming Chromebook push (see our unboxing of the Acer Chromebook 516 GE), Nvidia itself is now touting “high-performance PC gaming on Chromebooks”.
GeForce NOW RTX 3080 members can now stream their favorite PC games at up to 1600p and 120 frames per second in a Chrome browser. No downloads, no installs, just victory.
Nvidia Blog
ChromeOS has never been known for its ability to push AAA gaming, but ever since cloud gaming took off, Steam came to Chromebooks and now higher resolution displays with increased refresh rates, gaming keyboards with RGB being built into more hardware, and Wi-Fi 6 rolled out, all of that has changed dramatically.
Even still, Chromebooks likely won’t be meant for high-end games for some time, and cloud gaming remains king, so I can see why GeForce is making the push now. With its RTX 3080 membership (premium), you can now stream 1400+ games in 1600p at 120 frames per second! If you don’t own any games on the platform though, don’t worry – there are over 100 free titles to try out and enjoy out of the gate.
Oh, and if you end up picking up one of the aforementioned “gaming Chromebooks” that were recently revealed, you’ll get three free months of RTX 3080 through your Chromebook Perks! There are some other gaming perks as well, but we’ll cover those more in-depth in an upcoming post. Happy gaming!
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