GeForce NOW Cloud Gaming 6.38

GeForce NOW lets you play PC games on your Android phone or tablet, with the game running on NVIDIA's servers and only the picture streaming to you.

You bring the games from your own Steam, Epic or other store accounts, or pick from hundreds of free-to-play titles, and NVIDIA brings the gaming hardware.

The free tier costs nothing, with one-hour sessions and a short video ad before each one.

What GeForce NOW Actually Does

GeForce NOW does not sell or rent games. It rents you a powerful gaming PC in an NVIDIA data center, runs your game there, and sends the video to your phone while your taps and button presses travel back.

You link the store accounts you already use - Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, Xbox, Battle.net, the EA app or GOG - and the games you own that GeForce NOW supports show up in the app. NVIDIA's supported library runs to more than 4,500 games, but not every game on every store is included, so search for your favourites in the app first.

Your games stay yours. Cancel or change your GeForce NOW plan and your library on Steam or Epic is untouched, which is the big difference from subscription services that rent you a rotating catalogue.

The same service runs on a PC through GeForce NOW for Windows. If you also play on your own PC, keeping your NVIDIA GeForce drivers up to date matters there, though it makes no difference to cloud play.

Free, Performance or Ultimate?

All three tiers stream the same library, so the choice is about how long you can play, how good it looks and whether you watch ads first.

The free tier is a real way to play, not a demo. When an hour is up the session ends and you can start another, but free players join the queue behind paying members, so busy evenings can mean a wait.

Paying adds RTX graphics, sharper and smoother streams, longer sessions and a place nearer the front of the queue. Paid plans come with 100 hours of play a month, up to 15 unused hours carry over, and if you run out you can buy more or keep playing on free-tier terms.

Ultimate's 4K and higher figures apply to PCs, Macs and TVs rather than phones. On an Android phone, 1440p at 120fps is the top setting, and it needs Ultimate and a strong connection.

What Your Connection Needs

NVIDIA recommends 15Mbps for 720p at 60fps, 25Mbps for 1080p at 60fps and 35Mbps for 1440p at 120fps. Speed is only half of it, though: you also need less than 80 milliseconds of delay between you and the nearest NVIDIA data center.

At home, use 5GHz Wi-Fi rather than 2.4GHz. The 5GHz band is usually far less crowded, and switching to it is the first thing to try when a game feels laggy or the picture goes blurry.

Slower-paced games such as strategy titles and role-playing games forgive a less-than-perfect connection. Fast shooters and fighting games are the first to feel any delay.

Controllers, Touch and Headphones

Most PC games expect a controller, and NVIDIA strongly recommends one on a phone. It names the NVIDIA SHIELD controller, Razer Kishi V2, SteelSeries Stratus Duo and Backbone One, and most other Bluetooth gamepads Android recognises work too.

Some games offer touch controls, which is fine for a quick session but hard work in most PC titles.

Wireless headphones can add their own delay, so you hear a shot a moment after you see it. Bluetooth Codec Changer can switch your headphones to a lower-latency codec where they support one, and our guide to Bluetooth codecs explains the options.

GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming or Steam Link?

All three put PC-class games on your phone, but they differ on whose hardware runs the game and which games you get.

Xbox Cloud Gaming needs a Game Pass subscription, and the games leave when the subscription does. Microsoft began testing a free version with ads for Xbox Insiders in July 2026, but it is not the standard offer yet.

Steam Link costs nothing and adds no server queue, because your own PC does the work. It is best on your home network and can also stream over the internet, but your PC has to stay switched on. Steam Link 1.3.12 added AV1 streaming support for sharper video on capable phones.

Installing the APK

GeForce NOW needs Android 7.0 or later and at least 1GB of free memory, according to NVIDIA.

The download page offers a plain .apk and an .xapk. Pick the .apk - it installs by tapping it, while the .xapk is a split bundle that needs a separate installer app.

Before installing anything from outside Google Play, run the file through our APK Checker. Our guide on how to install an APK safely on Android covers the Install unknown apps permission step by step.

Once it is installed, create a free NVIDIA account, link your game stores, and the games you own appear in the app.

Recording and Sharing Your Games

To save a clip of a cloud session, XRecorder records your screen with no watermark, including game sound on Android 10 and later.

CapCut for Android then trims and edits the recording on your phone, ready to share.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

The tell is your connection, not your phone. If video calls on your Wi-Fi freeze or go blocky, cloud gaming will struggle in exactly the same way, whatever tier you pay for.

If the game you want is not in GeForce NOW's library, no plan will change that, because the publisher decides whether its games can be streamed. Search the library in the app before you pay for anything.

If you own a gaming PC at home, Steam Link plays your own games for free with no hourly sessions. And if you mostly want mobile games, the Play Store is simpler - everything else for your phone is in our Android APK section.

Quick questions

Download GeForce NOW for Android and see how your connection handles it on the free tier, or tell us how you got on if you have played on it before.