Nvidia is discontinuing its GameStream feature, currently present on its Shield devices, spelling trouble for the future of the entire Shield lineup.
If you’re an owner of an Nvidia Shield device, you may have received an email that states that Nvidia’s GameStream feature will be phased out in an update in mid-February. Shield devices are still on sale, and the ability to stream games from your main PC was a huge draw for the devices.
You were able to stream at resolutions up to 4K, as long as you had a GTX-powered PC. The accessibility of the feature made it a breakout hit, and you could easily play games on your TV, while your gaming PC stayed in another room. Sadly, Nvidia did not state any reasoning behind axing this incredibly popular feature.
With Team Green seemingly solely focusing on pushing out the RTX 40-series, it could be that the development resources on GameStream are just shifting elsewhere. However, there could be a little bit more at play than initially meets the eye.
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Is the company trying to push GeForce Now?
In recent years, Nvidia launched the cloud-based GeForce Now service, which is a subscription that allows you to play the latest and greatest AAA titles for a monthly fee. It works excellently, and it might be behind the reason why GameStream has been axed. Nvidia simply suggested using Steam Link as an alternative, which is useful in a pinch, but definitely not up to the same standard as GameStream.
The community steps in
In an effort to preserve the excellent features of GameStream, a small team of developers has partnered up with the developers of Moonlight to create a new alternative. Sunshine is effectively replicating the same features as GameStream and allows you to still retain the features that Shield owners paid for.
Sunshine even includes support for Intel and AMD GPUs, too, making it even more fully-featured than the original GameStream software.