Black Myth: Wukong on GeForce Now has finally convinced me that cloud-based gaming is the way of the future

I am surprisingly old fashioned for someone who spends his life covering the cutting-edge of technology. I don't care about esports and I prefer my games to run on the powerful hardware on my desk. I'm not interested in cloud gaming.

While watching Black Myth: Wukong streamed via a GeForce Now equipped MacBook at Gamescom 2020, I came to a realization. This is a re-evaluation of my principles. This is a title that made our Tyler's RTX 4090 struggle. While you can tweak the settings for a smoother experience (our Nick has a great guide to help you with that), it may take some adjustment to get the most out of it.

I was surprised to discover that cloud streaming services are a great way to play a game such as this. Simply put, the experience was brilliant. Perfect, even. Latency of 4 ms and less. Excellent visuals, delivered via a connected ultrawide display. A demanding game that looks trivially easy to run using a standard laptop.

Despite my instinct to be cautious when it comes to cloud-based gaming, I found myself wondering if I had fallen behind.

I thought of my home rig. Sure, I could start the game on my RX7800 XT and play around with the settings. But, I would have to constantly pull myself away from the magic on the screen by watching the frame rate counter.

Or, I could simply log in to Geforce Now using a supported device and press play. You can actually enjoy the game without worrying about whether your hardware is up to the job or whether you are just one setting away from a seamless gaming experience.

My demonstration was done on trade show internet which is notoriously unreliable. The Nvidia booth staff told me that the game used between 50-70 Mbps in average and that, other than a brief increase in latency at one point, the entire day had been smooth.

That being said, it was running on a GeForce Now Ultimate account, which grants you access to RTX 4080-equivalent performance delivered via one of Nvidia's enterprise-GPU-equipped machines. This is the most expensive level, at $20 per month.

Even though I only had a few moments to play Black Myth Wukong, it left a lasting impression. If you told me that this was running on an ultra-powerful PC under the desk, I would have believed you.

It's a great thing. GeForce Now would be a lifesaver if I had to play the latest game at choppy frame rates on older hardware. Or, of course not playing the game.

When I return to the UK, I will test GeForce Now in greater detail as my hotel's internet is not up to task. It's not magical after all. You do need a decent connection speed to get a proper effect. It's been some time since I've seen Nvidia cloud streaming in action, but I can't help but think that it looks like the future.

Like most of you, I'm sure, I love my PC hardware. I like to have powerful components running the games right next me, because that's where I think some of the magic is. What I saw was so convenient and seamless that it made me pause.

Why not send it to someone else if you can? Why not pay in small amounts for your hardware usage, rather than saving pennies and cents to make one-off purchases?

Developers get wide-eyed when they talk about the future thin clients, streaming and gaming in the Cloud. They are not just talking about the hardware benefits. A future where games are not limited by the size or quantity of assets. The entire Earth will be modeled in some way or another, and streamed to our eyes.

While these methods aren't necessarily the same as GeForceNow (in the above example, the rendering still happens on your local computer), they still rely on an internet connection in order to deliver your games live. Of course, there are caveats. Cloud providers will change prices at their whim. You are also stuck with the hardware they provide and if it goes under (as in the case of Google Stadia), you're out of luck. You don't need to worry about a slow internet connection or a bad speed in your area.

Cloud streaming is not the solution I or you want. We love our own hardware, but there are some downsides to playing games over a network. If this is the only solution, it's hard to argue the quality of the results.