RTX On Handheld: GeForce NOW Levels Up Steam Deck With A Native App

Valve's Steam Desk console just became an even more formidable handheld, and it's thanks to NVIDIA. No, there's not an upgraded model with a discrete GeForce GPU tucked inside. However, there is finally a native GeForce NOW app for the Steam Deck (just as promised at CES), which in some respects is the next best thing. It also makes the Steam Deck more competitive with the rash of Windows-based rivals that have entered the handheld marketplace over the past year or so.

Many of those rivals sport more powerful hardware—typically a Ryzen Z1/Z2 Extreme foundation, though MSI has dabbled with Intel's Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake architectures as well (see our Claw 8 AI+ review). The beauty of GeForce NOW, however, is that it offloads most of the grunt work to GeForce-enabled servers in the cloud to turn even low-end hardware into formidable gaming ...