/ Cloud gaming just got a major upgrade.
Liam Ortiz is a tech journalist who covers AI related big tech and breaking news at TheTweaks. Before joining TheTweaks he worked for almost four years in corporate and national tech news in different companies. Few are quick but Liam is quicker, he breaks news before anyone else and that makes her special. His passion is somewhere connected with profession as his hobby is watching documentary movies.
NVIDIA is continuing to expand its cloud gaming footprint yet again. The company revealed in its latest “GFN Thursday” update that the company will be opening a new GeForce RTX 5080-powered server in Toronto, featuring a significant content update to “NTE: Neverness to Everness” and three new games are coming to the GeForce NOW library this week.
The big news is the expansion of GeForce NOW’s infrastructure to Toronto. According to NVIDIA the new server, powered by NVIDIA’s RTX 5080-class GPUs, will be available in days and will help to accelerate the availability of dedicated, high-performance cloud gaming to gamers across Canada. A massive game library doesn’t mean much without a stable connection. For services where low latency and reliable connections are important, expanding regional server capacity is one of the most effective ways NVIDIA can enhance the actual gaming experience for local users, without the addition of more games.
GeForce NOW works by sending games from NVIDIA’s data centers to the player’s device, where the graphics, ray tracing, and frame generation are performed on NVIDIA’s hardware before the game is even sent to the player. So it really does matter where your server is located. The closer the data center, the lower the round trip latency and the better the experience will be, particularly in fast paced or competitive games.
The Toronto server will kick into action for the Ultimate-tier subscribers of GeForce NOW, enabling them to play across all PCs, Macs, handheld gaming devices, mobile phones, smart TVs and more with cloud-based RTX 5080-class power. NVIDIA is encouraging 4K support on compatible ultrawide screens, 120 fps graphics capabilities, and support for its signature technologies: DLSS for AI-upscaled performance, real-time ray tracing for lighting and reflections, and NVIDIA Reflex to cut input lag. In short, subscribers are able to enjoy the best gaming-PC performance streaming to whatever screen they have on hand without having to acquire the graphics hardware.
NVIDIA also announced a significant content update for NTE: Neverness to Everness, a supernatural adventure game, along with the infrastructure news. The new update, called “999 Nights” (Version 1.2), brings what NVIDIA describes as a major gameplay evolution: a new permanent tabletop-inspired fantasy role-play mode for the game’s Warren Continent, which will feature its own progression system, in addition to the main story.
There’s also a big outfit expansion, with 19 new character outfits, and two new playable characters, Shinku and Iroi. Draco will complete the upgrades, and it is a new motorcycle-style vehicle, according to NVIDIA, that will provide players with a quicker way to navigate the game’s urban settings.
What’s perhaps just as noteworthy about cloud gaming, though, is that NVIDIA just confirmed its own native touch controls will be coming soon to NTE: Neverness to Everness on GeForce NOW. That would allow users of supported mobile devices to play the game directly through their device’s touchscreen, as opposed to using an extra controller, a continuation of NVIDIA has been driving to with its cloud-streamed games to make them feel like a native application on a mobile device, rather than an awkwardly moved version of them. Similar to all other GeForce NOW games, players can get the game onto their devices without downloads or requiring additional local storage.
Beyond the update, GeForce NOW’s catalog is growing again this week with three additions:
The Granblue Fantasy: Relink is part of a larger initiative. The base game’s ‘Endless Ragnarok’ expansion features additional story content focusing on the Ragnalia, the mysterious enemies that pose a threat to the Zegagrande Skydom of Granblue Fantasy. The expansion also adds combat-focused summon abilities, new co-op quest tier, a solo mode featuring randomized encounters and master traits character customization, giving both new and returning players a new reason to jump back into the games.
Individually, none of these announcements is huge. Combined, the move illustrates NVIDIA’s consistent weekly routine of enhancements to GeForce NOW, which spans from hardware upgrades to new content deals to quality-of-life tweaks such as touch controls. In particular, the Toronto server is an indication that NVIDIA is still viewing regional infrastructure as a key cloud differentiator, since performance and latency are the deciding factors for whether a cloud service is a true option to a console or gaming PC, not the selection of games.
The bottom line for mainstream gamers: Canadian subscribers can expect faster, more reliable response from the new server as soon as it goes live, RTX 5080-tier technologies such as ray tracing and DLSS become available on a larger number of devices, and the library of games continues to grow, albeit on a fairly regular schedule of once a week or so. With the growth of cloud gaming as a category, this layer-on-top-of-infrastructure approach is somewhat how NVIDIA is trying to maintain its competitiveness against the other contenders in the field with GeForce NOW.
This is a low key update, rather than a high-impact one but for players in Canada, the new Toronto server is perhaps the most impactful addition here, as it will benefit the actual game playing experience more than a few new titles ever will. Pairing that with the touch control functionality to NVIDIA’s NTE: Neverness to Everness, plus the weekly rollout of new game titles, it’s evident NVIDIA is investing in GeForce NOW, rather than just promoting it.
Tim Cook’s 15 years as Apple’s chief executive officially ended on September 1 and now the torch has been passed on to John Ternus, who is the company’s long-time hardware. It’s Apple’s first leadership change…
Be respectful and constructive. Have a question or feedback? We’d love to hear from you. Contact us at contact@thetweaks.com