Good news for GeForce Now in South Africa

Nvidia’s GeForce Now has been at full capacity and not accepting new users in South Africa since shortly after its launch in December 2023. However, the service is set to be opened up to more users “soon,” according to its local partner.

GeForce Now allows users with an Internet connection to play thousands of the latest graphically-demanding games through powerful dedicated servers.

Instead of a local machine handling the demanding processing and rendering, the game content is streamed to any device with the GeForce Now app — including PCs, TVs, streaming boxes, streaming sticks, tablets, or smartphones.

MyBroadband’s own testing and several user reviews have shown the service performs very well in South Africa.

For GeForce Now to function properly, particularly regarding latency-sensitive titles like competitive online multiplayer shooters, the gaming servers must be located as close to users as possible.

In many countries, Nvidia works with “Alliance Partners” to roll out server infrastructure in local data centres rather than offering the service directly.

In South Africa, it teamed up with mobile network operator Rain, which also manages subscriptions to the service.

Since the service rolled out in December 2023, Rain has offered two GeForce Now packages: Priority and Ultimate, priced at R200 and R400, respectively.

The chosen subscription determines the gaming session length and graphics card users get access to, which impacts the resolution and frame rate they can play at.

However, nearly since launch, both plans have remained “Sold Out” on Rain’s website. Interested users must first sign up to join a waiting list before they will be sent an invite to get a membership.

Many eager to try the service in South Africa have complained that Rain has not contacted them for several months after signing up to the waiting list.

Several MyBroadband forum members have complained about the lack of slots, and some have expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the waiting list.

One MyBroadband Forum member said the waiting list appears not to function on a first-come, first-served basis.

“I’ve had my friends get priority slots quicker than some people who have been waiting on this forum since beta,” a user said.

MyBroadband could not find a single example of a person who was invited to join the service after putting their details on the waiting list, aside from those who were part of the GeForce Now beta or managed to sign up within hours after the service’s launch.

MyBroadband contacted Rain for details on how it managed the waiting list and why the service remained sold out for so long.

Although it did not elaborate on the waiting list issues, Rain said GeForce Now “seats” would be available soon.

“In addition, we are working with Nvidia to accelerate the installation of new GeForce Now GPUs to take the gaming experience to the next level,” Rain said.

The mobile network said South African users had recorded over 10.7 million minutes of combined playing time on the service since it launched.

Rain deliberately limits the number of GeForce Now registrations to avoid players having to wait in long queues to play on the service.

Depending on the chosen subscription, a user can only play a game for a certain amount of time — known as the session length.

Once that time has passed, the user is kicked out of the game and into a queue, which gives other people who had logged in while the user was in a session an opportunity to start playing.

Many GeForce Now users have said they have barely experienced any queues during normal operation of the service in South Africa.

That suggests solid user demand management, particularly considering users in other countries have complained of substantial queueing times.