Doom running at 1080p, 60fps and Ultra-Nightmare settings on my four-year-old laptop? You're having a laugh, mate. Instead, GeForce Now for PC is all about turning low-end systems such as laptops, netbooks and ancient PCs into high-powered gaming rigs, letting you play games you already own at the shiniest, most extreme graphics settings possible without said laptop or PC collapsing into a wheezing, undignified mess. Those have a different library of games and completely separate pricing structure to the PC version, so cast whatever you currently know about GeForce Now to the wind. So how does this GeForce Now malarkey actually work? One important point to make before we dive into the nitty-gritty is that this isn't the same thing as GeForce Now on Nvidia's own Shield tablet or their Shield TV streaming gizmo (helpful, I know). Your time in the gaming big leagues has arrived. So rejoice all you laptop and creaking PC people whose rigs would probably faint at even the slightest suggestion of running something like Doom or Shadow of War at Ultra quality settings and 60fps. It's free, uses your very own game library and their respective cloud saves, and, whisper it, it's actually pretty good.
This time, though, Nvidia might have finally cracked it, as the beta for their GeForce Now streaming service has finally arrived on PC in Europe and North America. There have been plenty of people who have tried their hand at it over the years, promising high-end, lag-free gaming without the need for all that bulky, costly hardware, but most (*cough* Gaikai*cough* OnLive*cough*) have ended up on that age-old trash heap of crushed dreams and broken promises, their meagre uptake prompting them to disappear back into the ether almost as quickly as they appeared. Cloud gaming has become a bit of a dirty word these days.