I recently wrote about how the M4 Pro Mac mini. With its tiny form factor and excellent performance, coupled with the largely headache-free experience of macOS, it’s made me extremely tempted to ditch Windows once and for all. There’s just one problem with this idea, though: I’m an avid gamer, and Apple’s M4 Pro chip isn’t quite as capable as the RTX 3070 that resides in my current PC.
Then I got an email from a reader that changed my perspective.
The reader suggested I look into GeForce Now, Nvidia’s cloud gaming service. You pay a subscription fee and in return can stream games to your computer with high resolutions and fast frame rates. The games are hosted on Nvidia’s own machines, meaning you can play incredibly demanding titles without needing the hardware to match.
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It was an intriguing concept. I’d be able to play high-end games at levels that would normally be way beyond the capabilities of the Mac mini (or, indeed, those of my own PC). GeForce Now has a large library of games and even enables you to play Windows exclusives on a Mac, which could mean a more expansive list of titles than I’d have access to if I ditched Windows and stuck with the regular macOS experience.
This would theoretically allow me to continue my PC gaming habits on a Mac — and in fact do it in a way that’s much closer to Windows than I’d be able to do natively on macOS — all while gaining the benefits of switching to Mac. And I have to say I’m pretty tempted by it.
Far from foolproof
Despite the positives, GeForce Now is far from a foolproof solution to my conundrum. For one thing, I often mod the games I play, whether that’s Skyrim, Fallout or Cyberpunk 2077. Modding on GeForce Now, though, is very limited — if it works at all.
You have to rely on modding tools that are integrated into the game, like Bethesda’s Creation Club in Skyrim and Fallout. Yet the Creation Club has a much more limited selection of mods than something like the Nexus Mods website. Reports indicate that you’re limited to 25 mods when using GeForce Now and that these often need to be reinstalled each time you play, which could be a real pain. To be fair, I haven’t played my modded games in a while, but I’ve got Cyberpunk’s Phantom Liberty DLC waiting in the wings, so the likelihood is I’d have to play it unmodded.
As well as that, you’re limited to the games Nvidia has in its library. Right now, that figure stands at over 2,000 titles. That sounds like a lot, but it’s not without its issues. Some of the games I’ve been playing the most right now are available, like Stardew Valley, Baldur’s Gate 3 and titles from the Assassin’s Creed series. Some, like Football Manager, aren’t on GeForce Now, but they can be played natively on my Mac, so that’s not a problem. In rare cases, though, games I play aren’t available either natively on the Mac or on GeForce Now. I’d have to do without those.
And then there’s the cost. My main choice is between the Performance and Ultimate tiers (I’m not interested in the very limited free option). I don’t mind that Performance is limited to 1440p — that’s what I play on now anyway — but I want to play at more than 60fps. For that, I’d need Ultimate, which costs $99.99 for six months. That’s quite a lot on top of the $3,000 I’d likely have to pay for the specced out Mac mini I want to replace my gaming PC. I know Apple kit is expensive, but you don’t normally have to factor in the cost of cloud gaming as well.
Looming on the horizon
I’m someone who has always preferred owning something instead of renting it, so GeForce Now feels like a slightly uncomfortable thing to be considering. But if I want to go all-in on macOS while still maintaining a gaming experience that’s as good as my current setup (or better) then cloud gaming is looming large on the horizon.
Of course, there are alternatives to GeForce Now, but they all come with many of the same issues that affect Nvidia’s offering. Yet at the same time, going the streaming route could save me the cost of upgrading to something even beefier — like the Mac Studio — just to get the kind of gaming performance I want.
Ultimately, it’s something I’m going to have to give a lot of thought to. I can’t expect a totally pain-free experience if I’m going to switch my entire PC setup to a different platform, but diving into cloud gaming could be one way to minimize the disruption to my gaming hobby — even with its handful of quirks and drawbacks.