Rain says that public beta testing of the first cloud gaming service to launch in South Africa — GeForce Now — has started.
The mobile network operator has partnered with Nvidia to offer the service locally.
After learning that several gamers on the MyBroadband forum and popular Facebook gaming community group ZA Gaming Alliance (ZAGA) had started receiving email and mobile app invites from Rain to use the service from last week, Rain confirmed the public testing had gone live.
It initially planned to open the public beta in the first quarter of 2023. However, it only started internal beta testing in April 2023 after the first South African GeForce Now server went live.
The mobile network operator has now told MyBroadband that selected Rain and non-Rain customers from the pre-registration process in 2022 have been sent invites to join the service.
“During the beta phase, we will listen to feedback from the users,” Rain said.
“Nvidia engineers are working with our Rain engineering team to ensure the network and GeForce Now GPU cluster are optimised before commercial launch.”
GeForce Now’s commercial launch in South Africa will follow the beta phase’s conclusion.
The service connects players to cloud gaming servers with powerful dedicated hardware that can run their games and stream it back to them.
Members can stream free titles or those they own or have as part of a subscription from digital gaming stores, including Steam, Microsoft Store, and Ubisoft.
Currently, over 1,500 games are supported.
GeForce now requires a minimum 5Mbps Internet speed for 720p gaming at 60fps, and 25Mbps for 1080p resolution at 60fps.
Early testing shows solid performance
Several MyBroadband forum members and ZAGA users have signed up and played games in the beta.
Rain users who sign up must pay a R1 monthly fee during the beta, while non-Rain users pay R3.
One MyBroadband forum member who is also a Rain Premium 5G subscriber could play Bethesda’s recently-released space RPG Starfield and reported better performance than when running natively on his own system.
That system features an Intel Core i3-12100F processor and AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT.
When cloud gaming, he had his settings on medium on the GeForce Now Priority option — the only tier currently available in the beta.
In his experience, he saw a 50fps or higher frame rate, which only dropped to about 35fps during some moments in spaceflight.
Another MyBroadband forum member uncovered details about the GeForce Now tiers that will be offered in South Africa by using browser developer tools on the beta sign-up page.
The table below outlines the GPU specifications, session lengths, and expected performance of the Priority and Ultimate tiers.
The key to a solid cloud gaming experience is the latency of the gaming servers.
The MyBroadband forum member who was first to test the service found they were getting a latency to the GeForce Now South African server of 19–25 milliseconds.
Another user said they played Cyberpunk 2077 with graphics set to high, and it felt like the game was being played natively with no input lag.
One Afrihost fibre subscriber — who had not joined the beta — said they were getting a ping of 2ms to the GeForce Now Gaming server, which would make for an excellent gaming experience.
Beta length and prices unknown
Rain would not confirm how long the beta will run, although the first MyBroadband forum member said the notification they received from the operator explained the beta period would be four weeks long.
While Rain would not confirm as much, the disappearance of the GeForce Now sign-up page on its website would suggest that it is not accepting any new applications for testers.
It also remains to be seen how much the service will cost when launched in South Africa.
In the US, GeForce Now plans start with a free tier with a basic rig that limits gaming to one session.
The Priority subscription currently in testing in South Africa is priced at $9.99 (R188) per month in the US, while Ultimate — which also seems to be planned for a local launch — costs $19.99 (R376) per month.
