My brother-in-law wanted me to help him “get into PC gaming” last year and he was basically asking me to build a system with a $0 budget. The last year’s work-issued laptop he used to get into gaming was choking at Zoom meetings and the fans roared like a jet.
And then I remembered I had tried it myself just a few weeks ago, on a semi-non-functional laptop I was using just to see how the streaming PC gaming service NVIDIA GeForce Now worked. I emailed him a link, gave him directions over the phone, and twenty minutes later he was streaming massive, AAA cyberpunk action straight from a game server in another data center, not his own machine.
That was the moment cloud gaming stopped feeling like some gimmick I’d try someday and started feeling like a practical, useful alternative.
If that term has been floating around and you have no idea exactly what it is or if it’s even something you want to try, here is the article I wish someone would have given my brother-in-law before I did.
How Cloud Gaming Really Works in Simple Language
Instead of having your PC or game console do all the heavy lifting and process the game locally, an powerful computer located somewhere in a data center does it all for you. That computer runs the game, captures the video output and streams it over the internet to your device almost like a video call. Your clicks and mouse movements are then sent back up to that same computer.
In essence, you are renting an external gaming PC, hourly or monthly, and just viewing and controlling it remotely.
This matters because it means your actual hardware hardly matters anymore. A five-year-old laptop, Chromebook, or a phone can technically run a $2,000 gaming computer’s worth of games, because the device is not responsible for any of the rendering at all.
The Platforms That Are Actually Worth Paying Attention To At This Moment
Many of these I have some experience on (though not all of them) and it’s worth noting that they may not be suitable for all types of player so here is an honest overview.
NVIDIA GeForce Now
NVIDIA Ge Force Now is the one I recommend most often, in part because it pulls the games from your existing library, rather than making you use a whole other one. It’s the only service that takes existing accounts from your favourite stores – like Steam, Epic Games and GOG – and makes them available in the cloud, so supported games are all ready to start streaming. The Ultimate tier (which runs on RTX 5080 servers now) can hit 4K at a very high frame rate, and it’s the closest thing I’ve experienced to sitting in front of an actual gaming PC. It’s not free, however – and it costs around $20 a month for the top tier, with a monthly hour limit.
Xbox Cloud Gaming
Xbox Cloud Gaming is included in Game Pass Ultimate, so if you’re already a subscriber for that, you’ve already paid for cloud gaming along with it. But you’re not streaming your own collection, you’re streaming from a rotating library of hundreds of included games. If you like trying out new games, excellent. If you want to play your dedicated existing collection, maybe not so much.
Boosteroid
Boosteroid is your “low-cost” choice and to be fair a decent one. You can stream any games you have on Steam and Epic too, the same as with GeForce Now, but for a lot less money every month. Performance can be a bit more unpredictable based on your location and server, but for the price I was stunned the first time I used it.
PlayStation Plus Premium
Playing on PlayStation Plus Premium is only really relevant if you’re already in the PlayStation ecosystem, and want to stream older PlayStation titles, along with some Playstation 3 games that you can’t otherwise play.
Amazon Luna
Amazon Luna is worth a quick mention. It no longer allows in-direct game purchases, it shut down the in-direct purchase store entirely back in January. There’s a Prime gaming tier with a rotating selection of titles, but you shouldn’t buy anything through it or expect it to last. That’s a good real-world example of the one risk with cloud gaming services you’re at the mercy of the provider.
How I Actually Set My Brother-in-law Up
Want to try it yourself? Here’s the essentially the same steps I took him through.
- Choose a service based on what you’ve already got. If you already own a Steam or Epic library, GeForce Now or Boosteroid are your best choices. If you don’t have many games and only want to play something from the Netflix of games, Xbox Cloud Gaming through Game Pass is the way to go.
- Troubleshoot your internet connection. Cloud gaming requires a reliable internet connection-preferably a wired ethernet connection-of at least 15-25 Mbps. Wi-fi can also work fine, though it’s not as reliable, particularly with other devices hogging bandwidth simultaneously.
- Get the app or use the browser version. All of these services can run directly in Chrome or Edge without the need for any installation, which is honestly one of the best parts about all of this.
- Tie your existing accounts now, if you have them. For GeForce Now and Boosteroid, you will connect your Steam or Epic account so that they know which games you already have.
- Begin with something less demanding firstly, not your most PPI hungry game I made the mistake of launching straight into a graphically demanding game during my first real test, and a short hiccup in my connection is clearly laid bare! Choose a game that’s less demanding on inputs to be able to judge your actual connection quality before trying something more competitive.
- If your game supports it, we recommend that you use a controller. Cloud gaming involves a tiny bit of latency (input delay) compared to playing locally, and playing with a controller tends to feel better on shooters at close ranges initially.
What Surprised me the most
I honestly thought cloud gaming would be laggy and infuriating, given some initial early stabs at it years ago that were crude in comparison. What surprised me was how close it resembled local gaming on a decent connection, so much so that I sometimes forgot that I wasn’t playing on the physical hardware at home.
What also amazed (less happily) was what a difference was made by Wi-Fi placement. Moving from a spare room with only a mediocre signal that felt like it halved my apparent input lag. Small thing, makes a huge difference. You can also read:
- GTA 5 on Mobile? I Tried Every Method So You Don’t Have To
- The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to PC Gaming In 2026
Let me break it down for you-by the end of the day:
Cloud gaming is no longer some far-off, future thing – it’s just sitting there, waiting to be used by those who don’t want to or simply cannot afford to put together a dedicated gaming PC. My brother-in-law has never had a real gaming computer, and he’s been consistently enjoying games in recent months with a work laptop that has no business, running some of the games he’s playing.
If your hardware is the limiting factor, and you have reliable internet, spend an afternoon actually trying one of these services for yourself, instead of just reading about it. With almost all of them offering free trials or monthly subscriptions that require low commitment, there’s very little risk in dipping your toes in to see if it’s the way you want to play.
