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I'm sure this will excite some of our readers who are fans of game streaming: NVIDIA has added the ability to play GeForce NOW game streaming via the browser.

Currently, it's limited to ChromeOS and Chromebooks as per their announcement. However, you can easily get around that because of how stupidly flawed browser agent strings are. Spoofing it is easy, although it only works in Chrome and not Firefox from my own testing. Just grab a User Agent Switcher plugin (like this), then add this as an option:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS x86_64 13099.85.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/84.0.4147.110 Safari/537.36

That allows NVIDIA GeForce NOW to run on desktop Linux, simply in a Chrome browser. Just like Google Stadia has been able to since release. Here's a video of it in action on my Linux desktop:

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Well, how about that? Another barrier broken down for Linux gaming fans. Surprisingly it did actually work really well. Input was responsive and the picture quality was really good.

NVIDIA GeForce NOW is quite different to Stadia, in that it uses games you have in your library across Steam, Origin, Ubisoft, Epic Games and more. However, if you wish to play past 1 hour, you have to pay a monthly subscription. The integration also feels far weaker than Stadia, which is a proper platform. On GeForce NOW, it's clearly Windows machines in the cloud to the point of hearing the Windows 10 ping sound when you click around as it doesn't let you. Stadia feels much tighter as a system and platform but GeForce NOW has the big benefit of games being available locally on your system as you "own" them as well as streaming them which Stadia does not, Stadia can only stream the games.

Obviously, at this point NVIDIA are not supporting the Linux desktop with GeForce NOW in any way and it could break any time - so keep that in mind. A mod on the community GFN Reddit did indicate this looks like the direction NVIDIA are going (having it in the browser), to open it up to more. Options are good for everyone though of course and we're just here to bring the tips.

You can try it on play.geforcenow.com.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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awesam Aug 23, 2020
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: AwesamLinuxI just checked and GeForce Now counts as playing a game on Windows (regardless of spoofing the browser ChromeOS).

Why would you think otherwise? The game is literally running on Windows. So it would be a misdetection not to count it as such.

Yea it makes sense, but I thought there would be something more advanced involved here. Like some kind of communication between Nvidia and Steam servers, so that it is known when a game is running on GeForce Now, the browser and OS used being reported etc.. But appears this is just basically the same thing as running a game on just any virtual machine
michaldybczak Aug 29, 2020
How to make the user agent working? There are required fields:

Append? Replace/Append - which one to choose?
Indicator flag - what should be put there? I tried S7, but not sure if that will work.

Now when the option is saved, how to activate it? So far it still says that device isn't supported so either I use wrong parameters or didn't activate it, or both.

This is frustrating, because only half of the info is given here, so this is basically useless :(
awesam Aug 29, 2020
Quoting: michaldybczakHow to make the user agent working? There are required fields:

Append? Replace/Append - which one to choose?
Indicator flag - what should be put there? I tried S7, but not sure if that will work.

Now when the option is saved, how to activate it? So far it still says that device isn't supported so either I use wrong parameters or didn't activate it, or both.

This is frustrating, because only half of the info is given here, so this is basically useless :(

-First install the user agent switcher plugin
-Right click and select options

-enter custom user agent info like pictured below (select replace) and click add

- Click on the User Agent switcher icon, select Chrome and then Chrome OS

done
michaldybczak Aug 29, 2020
Still doesn't work and I get "unsupported device" page :( and I did everything as you showed on Chrome browser :(




Last edited by michaldybczak on 29 August 2020 at 11:13 pm UTC
awesam Aug 29, 2020
Hmm strange, I assume the user Agent Switcher icon displays the letters "COS" right? (indicating that the ChromeOS profile has been selected)

Like on this picture (And this is also how my other user Agent settings look like)


If everything looks correct for you, I suggest downloading a different browser and try it (in my case I used Brave with default settings). Assuming you have done everything right, maybe there is some extension or some setting you changed in Chrome that is causing this (no idea what though, for example seen some sites not work with HTTPS everywhere enabled)
mylka Aug 30, 2020
Quoting: michaldybczakHow to make the user agent working? There are required fields:

Append? Replace/Append - which one to choose?
Indicator flag - what should be put there? I tried S7, but not sure if that will work.

Now when the option is saved, how to activate it? So far it still says that device isn't supported so either I use wrong parameters or didn't activate it, or both.

This is frustrating, because only half of the info is given here, so this is basically useless :(

you dont even need a addon
https://www.reddit.com/r/GeForceNOW/comments/ic39xi/guide_how_to_use_geforce_now_in_browser_on_chrome/

only thing is you have to uncheck it everytime
michaldybczak Aug 30, 2020
Yes, Agent Switcher icon displayed the letters "COS".

I tried the alternative solution. I disabled agent switcher to rule out any interferences, changed to Chrome OS and... nothing. Still get the "unsupported device" page.

I'm not using chrome on daily basis so the browser was in default state, no other plugins then agent switcher, so this couldn't be some plugin interference either.
I'm using Manjaro testing branch, everything is up to date, so I can't suspect obsolete packages too.
It has to be something else, but what? Next logical step would be to try different browser, for example Vivaldi and... BINGO! User agent worked this time. I did exactly the same on Chrome and it didn't work, on other chrome based browser, all works... Strange!
dubigrasu Sep 12, 2020
Looks like Nvidia removed the chromeos/chromebooks-only requirement. Nothing official, but I can use it now without any kind of spoofing.
Can anyone confirm?
awesam Sep 12, 2020
@dubigrasu it works for me too without spoofing now, wonder if this is a conscious change they made
dubigrasu Sep 15, 2020
Quoting: AwesamLinux@dubigrasu it works for me too without spoofing now, wonder if this is a conscious change they made
Funny thing, apparently you still need the spoofing on Windows. I haven't checked personally, but if so, is a interesting move.
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