While the market already has more powerful gaming handhelds, Steam Deck still remains one of the popular options among gamers. It’s mostly due to the excellent support from Valve and the dedication of the developers. The experience just keeps getting better. Take the new Nvidia GeForce Now update, for example.
The streaming service hasn’t offered official support before. But now, Nvidia has officially brought GeForce Now officially to Steam Deck. With this, you don’t need to go through the extra hassles to run it on your gaming handheld. And as it’s a native app, you get a much better experience than before.
What Is Nvidia GeForce Now
Nvidia GeForce Now is a cloud gaming service that lets you play PC games on a wide range of devices. That includes smartphones, tablets, laptops, and even TVs. With it, you don’t need a powerful gaming PC to play top-end games. Instead, the games actually run on Nvidia’s high-performance servers in the cloud. So, for example, if you have a game that you can’t run on Steam Deck, you can play it through this service.
Wondering how does the service work? Your device, such as the Steam Deck, simply streams the video feed and sends your controller commands back. These commands are processed by Nvidia servers. This allows you to play demanding games on devices that normally wouldn’t be able to handle them.
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There’s a free tier available that lets you try out the service. But it does have some limitations. For example, you get shorter play sessions and lower graphical fidelity. You can upgrade to get higher performance options, longer playtimes, and RTX features like ray tracing.
About the New Update for Steam Deck
So, Nvidia has officially brought GeForce Now on Steam Deck. With that, you get a new installation method that’s much better than the unofficial method. Of course, it should be noted that the installation method is still in beta. That means the experience might not go as smoothly as Nvidia intends it to go.
But the good part is that you don’t need to configure the steaming service manually on Steam Deck. Thanks to the official support, you will get automatically configured GeForce Now on your gaming handheld. The installation script will also install Google Chrome and other things needed to get you signed in.
Nvidia says things should go relatively smoothly on your Steam Deck. But if you happen to get stuck, the company has a detailed tutorial available on this link. Of course, the process still requires some extra steps than Windows. But if streaming services are important for you, you can just install Windows on your gaming handheld.
However, do note that SteamOS is much more refined for Steam Deck. It comes with many optimizations that make the gaming handheld perform its best. So, if you want the other games and apps to run better on the device, it’s better not to switch. Moreover, the Nvidia GeForce Now installation is still in beta. It will be more polished as it reaches a stable state.
