GeForce Grid sending Unreal Engine 4 to the cloud

While services like Gaikai and OnLive already bring streaming cloud gaming to the masses, some gamers still aren't convinced by the technology. Nvidia is hoping to change that with GeForce Grid, a new technology for servers based on its Kepler GPUs. It aims to reduce latency, improve image quality, and make running cloud services more cost effective for providers, thus making it cheaper for consumers.

Several service providers such as Gaikai, GameCloud, and Playcast, as well as third-party developers like Gearbox and Crytek, have already expressed an interest in the technology. That also includes Gears of War maker Epic Games, which hopes to "stream ultra-high-quality graphics such as those made possible by Unreal Engine 4" to a range of devices.

Those devices will include PCs, tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, and Internet-connected Smart TVs. At Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference in California, it demonstrated possible applications for GeForce Grid using an LG Smart TV, which came complete with a new "Virtual Console" app from Gaikai. The upcoming shooter Hawken was shown running on the TV, controlled by a USB gamepad plugged into it.

The technology behind GeForce Grid is a specialized dual-GPU graphics card made specially for severs and data centers that consume less power than current offerings, and can support up to four simultaneous players per server, versus the single-player supported in current cloud setups. It also promises to reduce latency via a range of encoding enhancements.

For more on Nvidia's Kepler architecture, check out GameSpot's in-depth look at the GTX 680.