From January 2026, Nvidia is curbing access to its GeForce Now cloud streaming service with a 100 hour usage cap per user. This change in policy affects all subscribers across all tiers, free and premium.
This playtime cap has been on the cards since November 2024. At the time, Nvidia imposed this 100 hour limit on new subscribers and provided a grace period to existing customers. However, the time has come for everyone to get in the same boat.
Well, almost everyone. If you’re one of the few out there with a Founders Edition subscription to GeForce Now, then you’ll be able to play for as long as you like per month. Just make sure to keep your membership active as any lapse will see this perk disappear.
A 100 hour limit may not seem like much to some, but I can easily see most people navigating this threshold without much issue. Speaking from my own point of view, I probably spend less time than that gaming locally on my own hardware, let alone via GeForce Now. You can purchase additional playtime for a fee, regardless, if push comes to shove.
Even with this cap in place, GeForce Now still presents good value. At £20 a month for its most-expensive tier, you’ll spend £240 a year and have access to a GPU akin to a GeForce RTX 5080, a £1,000 graphics card. That’s not forgetting any additional cost savings of electricity and other incidental expenditure that comes part and parcel with a powerful PC.
While this playtime cap doesn’t diminish the economic appeal of GeForce Now, it does highlight its biggest drawback, namely lack of ownership. Nvidia owns the hardware you’re effectively renting from it and will continue to set the terms for how it wants them used. Concerns of a slippery slope are valid.
However, while the DRAM shortage rages on, stifling consumers’ abilities to upgrade their hardware, using a GeForce Now server in the meantime seems like a sensible port in this storm. That’s not forgetting the fact that reduced Nvidia GPU availability may be just around the corner too.
If you’re considering giving Nvidia’s service a go, whether as a new or returning subscriber, I suggest giving my GeForce Now RTX 5080 review a read. While my piece largely focuses on how it transforms my Steam Deck, my overall thoughts and conclusions apply to other devices too.
Nvidia no doubt has some announcements in store for CES 2026, and Club386 will be there to report on all of them. To make sure you don’t miss a thing from the show, make sure to follow the site’s Google News feed and join the conversation on socials.
