GeForce Now vs. Google Stadia: Good and bad in all the same ways

Nvidia GeForce Now and Google Stadia are among the leaders of the pack for cloud gaming — technology which renders and streams supported games from data centers to phones, PCs and Macs so you can play on devices that might otherwise not be able to run them. Among high-profile newcomers there’s also Microsoft’s Project xCloud, still in testing but with the advantage of the Xbox game library behind it.

That’s a pretty big advantage, given that both GFN and Stadia are both are having problems delivering on their promises, from Nvidia losing support for a lot of popular games post launch, to Google’s small selection for the money and big letdown on Doom Eternal’s “4K.” It can’t be emphasized enough: don’t buy a game just to play it on either service because you may be out of luck before the year ends.

With the exception of their underlying purpose, as well as their inability to run on iOS, GFN and Stadia couldn’t be more different. GFN works with games you already have (sort of); Stadia only works with games you buy from Google specifically adapted for it. GFN has apps for a variety of devices and platforms; Stadia requires some Google operating system, like Android or Chrome OS or the Chrome browser. Nvidia touts ray tracing as its quality perk for paying customers; Google pushes 4K, HDR and 5.1 sound. Nvidia rations capacity with playtime limits; Google doesn’t really need to ration.

Both experience performance glitches thanks to the vagaries of in-home network connections, but either can perform well enough at any given moment to hook you into staying. 

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At its best, GeForce Now can be a seamless experience, nearly indistinguishable from playing a game installed on the machine in front of you. But even then, fast-paced first-person shooters are the most sensitive to network and backend issues, and more often feel just a few split-seconds off, enough to distract from the experience. If you’re a devotee of free-to-play games, those seem pretty safe and are probably worth the price of admission (and certainly the zero price if you don’t mind getting punted out once an hour). But until the supported game catalog becomes more stable, you may want to think twice.

Read our Nvidia GeForce Now review.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Because it requires customized versions of games, Stadia only has a handful of popular titles — the catalog seems padded with different editions of the same game, and for instance, while Doom has been on the Stadia site since launch you can’t actually find it in the store. And at the moment, it really doesn’t feel like it’s worth the $129 for the Premiere bundle plus $10 per month (after the free three-month trial) plus another $60 for a game that you may already own or that you may not be able to play if Google pulls the plug on Stadia — a nontrivial probability given the company’s history. 

Read our Google Stadia review.

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GeForce Now takes on Google Stadia in cloud gaming

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