Although the MacBook Air M1 and Mac mini M1 were able to impress us with their impressive performance and incredible efficiency, some are still wary of moving away from Intel-based machines. There’s a good reason for this: Apple is pretty transparent that the new architecture is not compatible with all software, and although this gap will increase over time, it’s hard to justify the upgrade if you have software of your choice.
And while few people would buy a Mac just for the gaming options, those with a new M1 MacBook or Mac mini just have a much bigger choice. With GeForce Now 2.0.27, Nvidia has added the compatibility for M1 Macs in the official macOS app. This, along with games that can be played via an Apple Arcade subscription, makes the new hardware much easier to sell to those who like to play games.
It’s also not just owners of the new Macs who benefit. At the same time, Nvidia has added support for the Google Chrome browser, which opens the door for millions of entry-level laptops to stream games remotely. As long as they can manage a Chrome window, they suddenly have access to more than 2,000 games.
Nvidia says the additional Chrome support is intended for Windows and macOS machines (ChromeOS was added last August). “Other platforms may work but are not supported,” the notes explain.
For those unfamiliar, GeForce Now even lets you run simple hardware triple-A games by plugging into a cloud with a powerful gaming computer, which takes the hassle out of exporting the video to your device backflow.
This is not a streaming service in the same way as Netflix for example. You need to own the games you want to stream on Steam, the Epic Games Store or similar, and although you can pay a subscription membership (currently $ 24.95 for six months), it does not include games – it only adds features like priority access at, remove the one-hour session length from the free level and add ray trace support.
In theory, any game can work on GeForce Now – and the service includes both hardware-intensive titles like Cyberpunk 2077, as well as free games like Apex Legends. But it requires game publishers to act, which some were initially reluctant to feel they were theoretically funding Nvidia’s paid membership with no financial incentive to do so.
Things seem to have calmed down a bit now, but you can read the full list of games here to make sure your favorite title is in the mix before you sign up.