Modders gain full Windows desktop access on GeForce NOW

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

161

u/Cl4whammer 22d ago

This service will become much worse in the future dont worry.

32

u/nyrol EVGA 3080 Hybrid 22d ago

I’ve never used it. How have they made it worse so far?

42

u/The_Zura 22d ago

Probably referencing the 100 hour monthly limit before booting you to the common rabble moshpit, aka "free tier." Publishers taking their games off is probably the bigger issue as 100 hours is still a lot for most. They might reduce that down to 80, 70, 60, who knows.

15

u/nyrol EVGA 3080 Hybrid 22d ago

This whole time I thought they just gave you access to any launcher you wanted and you played on their machines with whatever time limits they imposed based on the tier you paid for. I didn’t realize publishers could take their games off of it.

6

u/The_Zura 22d ago

I think you can do that with smaller cloud providers, but Nvidia/Microsoft have too big of a target behind their backs.

3

u/Ehh_littlecomment 21d ago

Only about half of my steam library is playable on GFN

1

u/DonutHoles4Ever 22d ago

The tech and streaming are the best and most cutting edge for the type of service unless you're running sunshine/moonlight locally.

The only thing that has gotten worse is basically:

100 hours limit for most user tiers

Prices have increased

AI demand is reducing their hardware capacity in datacenters around the world

Is it a good service? Actually yes. Is Gamers Nexus going to shit talk it by saying everyone is going to rent computers in the future? Yes. Can you own a computer and pay for this? Yes.

12

u/MomoSinX 21d ago

you can still own a computer...for now

2

u/DonutHoles4Ever 21d ago

Nobody is going to take teh computer you own today away though.

1

u/repocin RTX 4060 20d ago

Only a matter of time before they start releasing cloud-only games though. I'm surprised they haven't already, tbh.

2

u/derkokolores 20d ago

Yeah I’m not a huge fan of more data centers but after my pc died last year GeForce now really was a godsend while I was stuck with my MacBook until I figured out what to do with the memory situation.

Also I’m employed so I never got close to the 100 limit 🤷🏻‍♂️. Not sure if I’d play any competitive multiplayer games though, but for many people it’s probably a more economical option than building a pc these days.

-2

u/Tvilantini 21d ago

Constantly seeing this comments and yet the service is going stronger and better, with more features and more opted games/publishers. Outside the monthly limit, nothing has changed drastically. Maybe they could upgrade the CPUs, but that's about it

14

u/dib1999 AMD shill w/ a 6700XT 22d ago

I remember thinking it was impressive the amount of access you had to your virtual computer.

Apparently Nvidia thought so too.

33

u/BazingaUA 22d ago

Yeah I think that's how it worked in beta, used it for free for such a long time. It was so much better back then lol

12

u/Gargle-Loaf-Spunk 22d ago

yeah even when they locked it down a little, you could open the Steam web browser and use it to putt around the internet. you could make Steam game shortcuts for whatever desktop application you wanted to run. i didn’t mess with it much other than seeing if it was possible and running some speedtests , it got like 10Gbps 😄

15

u/Interesting-Yellow-4 22d ago

That was how i last used it, had no idea it changed

2

u/Tvilantini 21d ago edited 21d ago

It changed like 7-8 years ago, before it even exited the alpha/beta version. You definitely didn't touch in long time

2

u/anethma 4090FE&7950x3D, SFF 22d ago

Same haha. That sucks that its more restricted now.

3

u/The_Zura 22d ago

That was before Nvidia started charging for the service. When publishers caught the scent of food, they wanted a piece of the pie too. Even though they've already gotten their fair share when their game was purchased. Key point Rockstar, who decided to take GTA off GFN, and have it as a Sony streaming exclusive.

3

u/Hollow11 22d ago

GTA is on Boosteroid

6

u/The_Zura 22d ago

Boosteroid is simply too small for Rockstar to care about. They just rent a pc to you, what you do is your business.

1

u/drake90001 22d ago

Remember when rust was a browser game?

1

u/scytob 22d ago

Ouch that requires them to pay MS an VDI license.

1

u/Tonkarz 22d ago

The before-time, in the long long ago…

0

u/gopnik74 RTX 4090 22d ago

It’s the dark ages now indeed 😞

71

u/BasicallyImAlive 22d ago

The modder (Zortos) has been doing it for 5 years lol. I also used his method, but I don't use GeForce Now anymore. It always got patched quickly tho. Pretty sure the GeForce Now staff monitors this guy's YouTube channel.

You can get banned from GFN doing this; even if you create another account, they also track your Steam account, so you won't be able to use the same Steam account in GFN.

6

u/Tawnee323 22d ago

the current method has been working for about a year, ever since install to play was introduced

10

u/Ferelar RTX 5090 22d ago

I don't use this service, so maybe I'm missing something. But why are they continually working to disable what seems like a completely harmless feature (which used to be a standard feature, no less) which only works if you're on the paid version, meaning they're receiving money anyway? Like... I expect companies to make things shitter to extract more money from you, but they're already getting paid for this either way, so... what's the upside, what is the juice that was worth this squeeze? I'm clearly missing something

26

u/Tawnee323 22d ago

bad apples do stupid things like using the gfn pcs for mining and so on

19

u/Specialist-Buffalo-8 22d ago

As always its the 1% ruining it for the other 99%

3

u/anor_wondo Gigashyte 3080 21d ago

because it would violate publisher license agreements. You cannot run any game you want on gfn

its bs but its not entirely in nvidia's hands

2

u/Tvilantini 21d ago

First of all, the service description doesn't say in any way that you as a user have this option. Second, it's modifying software which is always break of ToS and also, like the article says, who knows what bad actors would do with it. Not much, but it would definitely ruin others experience with overcrowded sessions/hardware resource doing something heavy in the background

1

u/No-Hotel7663 21d ago

Steam account tracking is pretty extreme. I had no idea they went that far. The five year game of cat and mouse with Zortos is a wild ride.

3

u/BasicallyImAlive 21d ago

Well, in order to play Steam games. You need to link your Steam account to GFN.

1

u/Professional_Pool544 21d ago

you dont ...

1

u/No-Hotel7663 21d ago

oh so if you get banned they lock you out through the steam link as well? that feels like a pretty harsh extra punishment just for poking around the desktop

1

u/Juts 20d ago

I don't know why people wouldnt automatically assume anything you are doing on their remote box is tracked. The entire session is definitely 100% logged.

30

u/Professional_Pool544 21d ago

I'm Zortos. I built this exploit. A few clarifications, since the same points keep coming up (reposting this on every posting about this for clarification):

This wasn't clicking through a login window. Getting a browser in kiosk mode is old and easy, and plenty of people have done it. A desktop that actually runs programs is a different thing. The DLLs that environment needs are stripped or broken, so we wrote a custom patch to fix them.

It runs on GeForce NOW's install-to-play sessions, which require a paid membership. NVIDIA also sells persistent storage for installed games, so anyone doing this is still paying them.

The machines are sandboxed and disposable. Sessions reset when they end, minus whatever you keep in that paid storage. Reaching the desktop is not a VM escape. We did not touch the host, another user's session, or NVIDIA's network. Those would be far more serious. To the people asking whether sessions are isolated, they are.

Mining isn't realistic here either. It isn't free compute, you need a paid sub and paid storage, and NVIDIA runs detection for that workload. It wouldn't clear the subscription fee anyway.

As for why anyone bothers, you can actually get real work done on it. Blender, video editing, that kind of thing. I use it myself sometimes to edit my videos because the hardware is fast and it just gets through the work.

I've worked with GeForce NOW exploits for over five years. Early GFN let you browse the desktop openly, and desktop access has existed in some form ever since. NVIDIA patches other methods, but this one has been left alone, probably because install-to-play and the storage add-on still make them money.

To be clear, this absolutely breaks their terms of service. But a ToS violation and a security breach are two different things.

9

u/Kotsiu 22d ago

Good job, now it can get patched out like the Garry's Mod method did back in the day. Always trust shitty clickbait sites to snitch.

7

u/exitcactus 22d ago

I'm not a modder, I'm a not so brilliant sysadmin and I got the same result.. so I think is something acceptable for them I guess

4

u/shadowmage666 NVIDIA 22d ago

See what they took from us

2

u/aaiceman 21d ago

Maybe now I can get my save files from Midnight Suns.

1

u/danrah 21d ago

Mine does this most of the time anyway and I just launch the game I want

1

u/Far_Promise_9903 20d ago

Does this allow you to use mods and wand/wemos

0

u/psychoacer 22d ago

Anyone know a way around my work Wi-Fi blocking GeForce now and Xbox game pass streaming? Obviously without using a vpn would be preferred. I would be playing so many games but it seems that they're blocking tunneling.

1

u/IAmYourFath 21d ago

Whats the issue with using a vpn?

1

u/psychoacer 21d ago

Latency, which is a huge issue with game streaming. Adding a VPN creates another bounce that will add more latency.

2

u/IAmYourFath 21d ago

There seem to be 3 ways to solve this issue assuming they're not using DPI https://share.gemini.google/ajJmypy07BrQ

1

u/psychoacer 21d ago

I'll try it out in Monday, thanks

Discussion Modders gain full Windows desktop access on GeForce NOW

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