Nvidia GeForce Now customers simply obtained hit with a playtime cap that is virtually not possible to keep away from

From January 1, 2026 practically all customers of Nvidia GeForce Now shall be topic to its month-to-month playtime cap. The brand new Nvidia GeForce Now 100 hour cap will solely be avoidable if in case you have a coveted Founders Version subscription, with all different customers having to pay a surcharge of as much as $5.99 per further 15 hours of sport time, in the event that they exceed the 100 hour restrict.

This 100 hour cap has been in place since November 2024, however on the time of its preliminary implementation, present customers have been exempt – it solely utilized to new customers. Nevertheless, that grace interval has now ended, and all however Founders Version customers shall be topic to the brand new restrict for Nvidia’s service from the beginning of subsequent yr.

GeForce Now could be a sport streaming service that gives the power to play the video games you already personal on nearly any system. Your video games are run on the corporate’s servers, together with your inputs despatched to the server the place the sport renders, with the resultant compressed picture and audio despatched again right down to your system. It is at the moment accessible in three tiers, ranging from free, rising to $19.99 per 30 days, with limits on graphical high quality, time per session, and extra relying on the tier.

Founders Version subscriptions have been accessible when the GeForce Now service first launched, providing limitless playtime amongst different perks. A yr into the service’s launch, they stopped new sign-ups to Founder Version, however present customers have been allowed to maintain their accounts.

Over time, the relative high quality of those accounts has diminished, with the trendy Final tier providing greater decision and body price choices, although at a far greater value than the $5 a month of the now-renamed Founders for Life plan. Nevertheless, the perk of utterly limitless playtime has made Founders Version accounts a still-coveted prize, with this newest announcement additional cementing the worth of OG accounts.

For all different subscribers, from January 1, 2026, they will should pay both $2.99 per further 15 hours in the event that they use the Efficiency tier, or $5.99 per further 15 hours if they’re on the Final tier.

After all, for a lot of, even very avid PC avid gamers, 100 hours a month of gaming is not going to seem to be a problematic restrict. It might technically solely work out as simply over three hours a day, however that is each single day with no breaks. When you think about only a handful of days a month the place you do not use the service, you are as much as effectively over 4 hours a day of use. Even in my youthful, Counter-Strike or Apex Legends-obsessed days, that will be the restrict of my every day play.

Nonetheless, if you wish to get a way of the potential rising value of GeForce Now, one Redditor has usefully tabulated the brand new value of gaming between 0.5 and 16 hours a day. Reckon you play six hours a day every single day of the month? That’ll value you $27.93 a month for the Efficiency tier (as much as 1440p, 60Hz, six-hour restrict per session) or $55.93 a month for Final (as much as 4K, 240Hz, eight-hour restrict per session).

In some ways, this chart truly goes to focus on simply how affordable worth GeForce Now truly is, if, relating to your PC, all you care about is gaming. Even gaming six hours a day each single day on Final, you are still solely paying $3,351.60 over the span of ten years, all whereas with the ability to play at 4K/240Hz with RTX 5080-tier efficiency. Contemplating a model new PC with an RTX 5080 would value you about that a lot up entrance – particularly with the present DRAM value bubble – that is not dangerous worth.

Nonetheless, most of us worth the ability of our PCs for extra than simply gaming, or a minimum of we worth them for the power to sport by way of different avenues than simply utilizing GeForce Now. Plus, PCs are steadily upgradable, so that you’re seldom dropping $3k in a single go. Regardless, if you’re an present GeForce Now person or have been tempted by the service, it’s possible you’ll wish to tot up what number of hours you truly spend gaming over the course of a month.