GeForce Now cloud gaming service gets South African server — adds Rain as provider
Observant MyBroadband community members have spotted that you can select Rain as a service provider when signing into Nvidia’s GeForce Now game streaming service.
The South African servers for the cloud gaming platform also appear to be online. They are called AF SOUTH 1 in the GeForce Now app.
Once signed into GeForce Now with a Rain account, you can connect it to your Steam and Ubisoft game libraries.
Connecting GeForce Now to an Epic Games account is also possible, but it does not offer game library synchronisation with Epic’s store yet.
An active Rain subscription is not required.
This is some good news for gamers eager to see GeForce Now launch locally, as it seems the only remaining piece that must be activated is Nvidia’s billing for South Africa.
Nvidia does not yet let South Africans subscribe to GeForce Now.
Clicking on the “Join Today” button opens a page on Nvidia’s website in your default browser, which presents a popup asking if you want to switch your region to South Africa.
Clicking that button takes you to a “not found” error page displaying the light-hearted message, “Even AI can’t find this page!”
However, its South African servers and Rain’s listing as a GeForce Now provider have been active for at least a month already, with no word from either company about when it would launch.
MyBroadband contacted Rain for comment about GeForce Now’s seemingly imminent South African launch but didn’t receive feedback by publication.
Update — Rain has provided the following statement: “We are extremely proud to be partnering with Nvidia as we collaborate on our cloud gaming solution powered by GeForce Now. Currently, we are in the internal beta phase and are preparing to expand the beta programme to selected customers in the near future.”
When Rain first announced its partnership with Nvidia, it said it would launch GeForce Now in South Africa during the first quarter of 2023, beginning with a limited beta programme.
The beta launched in April — a month late — according to a report by Hypertext.
Rain also reportedly said a wider launch of the service would follow later in the second quarter. Since we’re already at the start of Q3, hopefully that means the launch will happen soon.
MyBroadband tested the GeForce Now sign-in procedure using Rain as the provider, and ran a test against the AF SOUTH 1 server. Our experience is summarised in the screenshots below.
Signing in from the GeForce Now native app opens a list of providers in your default browser. Rain is at the bottom.
Clicking on Rain in the GeForce Now providers list takes you to a login page on Rain’s website.
Nvidia asks your birth date, presumably to calculate your age, and asks for marketing consent.
Once the initial setup is complete, GeForce Now prompts you to pay for a membership.
However, attempting to activate a membership leads to a page on the Nvidia website that doesn’t exist — https://www.nvidia.com/en-za/geforce-now/
The GeForce Now app lists AF SOUTH 1 as the only available server from South Africa.
Tests to the South African GeForce Now server appear to succeed.
Loading ...