Nvidia's GeForce Now is officially coming to the Steam Machine — here's why that's great news for gaming in your living room
Play even the most demanding games on Valve's PC
- Nvidia's GeForce Now is officially inbound for the Steam Machine
- Support for the Steam Controller is also coming
- This gives owners of Valve's PC more flexibility to stream top-end games that won't run on the Steam Machine's more modest hardware
Nvidia has revealed that its GeForce Now service is coming to the Steam Machine.
As The Verge reports, Team Green made the announcement at Gamescom 2026, where it said that GeForce Now streaming will be arriving on the Steam Machine before the end of the year, and also that the Steam Controller will be supported. (The Steam Deck already is, of course).
In other words, you'll be able to enjoy the GeForce Now app on the Steam Machine, with the controller too (and support for the Steam Controller will be debuting for Windows 11 and macOS later in 2026, too).
Nvidia also told us that more Fire TV Sticks will be supported, with GeForce Now subscriptions set to be available directly from Amazon.
GeForce Now has just launched on the Firefox browser as well, and the streaming service is getting DLSS 4.5 goodies, which Nvidia notes include Super Resolution (upscaling), as well as dynamic Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction.
The arrival of DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction was announced at Gamescom, too, offering better image quality with ray-traced (and path-traced) games.
Analysis: Steam Machine dream team
GeForce Now support is something that several Steam Machine buyers (or would-be purchasers) have indicated they'd love to have. Why? Because Valve's PC hasn't got the beefiest of specs due to the hardware compromises that have been made to ensure this is a smartly compact box that fits nicely in the living room without drawing attention to itself (in terms of size or indeed noise).
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This means that you can't play more demanding PC games on the Steam Machine simply because it doesn't have the graphics muscle. And this is why GeForce Now is viewed by some as the perfect partner for the Steam Machine — you can play many games locally, on the device, but when you want to enjoy a cutting-edge title that Valve's hardware can't hope to handle, you can stream it via GeForce Now instead (assuming it's supported by Nvidia, of course).
As one gamer on Reddit who was hoping for this move to be made noted: "Play the AA games on the [Steam] Machine and the AAA games with max graphics via GeForce Now."
That dream is soon to become a reality, although this setup sounds more like a nightmare to some who are quick to point out the costs involved, with the streaming subscription for Nvidia's service coming on top of the weighty price of the Steam Machine.
I can't argue with that, really, but if you do have a Steam Machine, dipping into GeForce Now waters does make sense in terms of playing (almost) everything you want in your living room with a slick and super-compact PC. (Assuming your internet connection is beefy enough for game streaming, that is). In this scenario, you are getting some serious gaming versatility, power, and convenience — it's a tempting, if pricey, combo.
The alternative is building a more powerful Steam Machine clone yourself (or buying a prebuilt along these lines), but bear in mind that this route comes with compromises of its own. Whatever the case, GeForce Now offers more options with the Steam Machine; there's no denying that.
➡️ Read our full guide to the best laptops
1. Best overall:
Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M4
2. Best budget:
Asus Chromebook CM14
3. Best Windows 11 laptop
Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch
4. Best gaming:
Razer Blade 16
5. Best for pros
MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro)
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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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