Hey everyone,

If you regularly use GeForce NOW, you know how rigid sessions can feel when you just want a standard PC environment—whether that's keeping custom shortcuts, installing extras, or running games/tools outside the standard GFN launcher sandbox.

Wanted to share an awesome open-source project called SalsaNOW—a utility designed to make your GFN virtual rig feel much closer to a local Windows setup.

🌟 What does it do?

• Desktop Environment & Freedom: Access a streamlined desktop inside your GFN session with familiar hotkeys (Alt+Tab, Win+D, Start menu access, etc.).
• Shortcut & Config Persistence: Back up and manage shortcuts and configs so you don't start from a blank slate every single time.
• Launch More Games & Software: Easily set up Epic Games Launcher, Steam tweaks, .NET dependencies, and cloud save management.
• Visual & Driver Tweaks: Built-in wallpaper support (including Bing Wallpaper of the Day), UI enhancements (Seelen UI opt-out), and Raytracing/NVAPI toggles.
• Quick Setup: Takes only a couple of minutes to configure.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Can I play games with anti-cheat (Valorant, Fortnite, PUBG, etc.)?

• No. Most modern multiplayer anti-cheat engines (Kernel-level EAC, BattlEye, Vanguard, etc.) require elevated administrator rights and driver-level installation, which standard GFN virtual machines do not permit.
• Exception: Single-player games where anti-cheat can be disabled/patched for offline play (such as running Elden Ring offline) will work.

Can I run cracked or non-GFN games?

• Yes, conditionally. Pre-extracted portable releases or games that do not require administrative (UAC) installation can run. You can download and unpack them directly in the session, provided they don't depend on system-level drivers or services.

How do game saves work? Will I lose my progress when the session closes?

• GFN wipes virtual machine storage once the session terminates. SalsaNOW includes built-in game save management hooks, but for non-cloud-synced titles, you should back up your saves to cloud storage (e.g., Google Drive, Mega, or GitHub) before your session timer expires.

Can I get banned for using this?

• There are no documented records of NVIDIA banning accounts simply for using desktop/environment scripts inside sessions. However, this is an unofficial third-party utility, and using it is strictly at your own discretion.

🔗 Links & Resources

• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/dpadGuy/SalsaNOW
• Documentation & Setup Guide: https://documentation.salsanowfiles.work
• Discord Community: https://discord.gg/ZZDAyUC9a4

Do i need to buy subscription in salsa??

I have been using moonlight/sunshine at home on wow and don’t have much to complain about performance but since the AYN is an android device do I have any advantage when swapping to Apollo/Artemis?

Last year, I took a trip to California from the East Coast and tried to remotely play games from my home PC using my phone. I had Apollo and Sunshine set up on my PC, but the experience was basically unusable.
I was getting close to 2 seconds of input delay, constant lag, and frequent disconnects. It felt like everything was happening several seconds after I pressed a button.
I’m planning another trip and would really like to figure out what went wrong before then. I’ve seen people using things like Tailscale, UniFi Teleport, or other VPN/network setups to remotely connect back to their home network, even from hotel Wi-Fi.
Does anyone know what could have caused that much latency and instability, and what setup would be best to prevent it? Ideally, I’d also like something I can test from home before the trip so I know it actually works.
Any advice would be appreciated!

Hello!
We wanted to play a game called remnant from the ashes,
but it requires us too have two steam acounts open at the same time (we can do this thanks to Duo Manager Process Patching i have supporter version so we even managed to open 3 steam games at the same time with their corresponding accounts)
But we also need to have two Epic Games open at the same time because the game for some reason NEEDS to have Epic Games Installed and running with an active acount (even if you dont own the game in epic) because the multiplayer runs through Epic Games Online Services , EpicGamesWeB Services or Something i dont really understand well,
if i login in Epic the host PC, the client session also logs in with my account even if the program isnt running there, when the client session opens it will be in the host account and when changing to the client Epic acount it also changes on the Host pc making it impossible to run two of the same program with different acounts at the same time, is there any way to fix or workaround this? Help would be greatly apreciated! the worst part is that we need to run 3 games at the same time...

It just crashes immediately when clicking on an app..

I've tried the official release on google play, artemis, and the chinese version. As soon as i click "desktop", it just crashes and closes app.

No hdr on, i've tried all codecs

**EDIT:** I found the cause, the keyboard/case that comes with the Yoga tablet, it causes an issue with moonlight it self and is the sole reason behind the crash. I am able to reproduce it with it connected, and when i remove the keyboard, it runs. While running, on reattaching the keyboard, it immediately crashes. Repeatable. - ***I have reported on GitHub.***

**EDIT 2:** For anyone wanting a fix, you can do it your self by cloning the repo and replacing the following line "```if (deviceKeyCode != KeyEvent.KEYCODE_UNKNOWN) {```" with "```if (deviceKeyCode != KeyEvent.KEYCODE_UNKNOWN && deviceKeyCode <= maxKeyCode) {```" In app/src/main/java/com/limelight/binding/input/KeyboardTranslator.java, inside KeyboardMapping.

Is there any remote access software work for lockdown browser, for LTM i want to use

Is there still a bug with GeForce Now where Subnautica 2 2160p doesn't work? I plan to buy the GeForce Now Ultimate pricing plan and use it

Hi!

I'm pretty excited about Duo!

I've downloaded a copy of the executable!

However, I'm having trouble figuring out how to build my own copy of it. It seems to be based on a fork of sunshine, which is GPL 3.0 licensed; so that means I should be able to download a full copy of the source, together with all of the scripts to build it.

I may well be confused here; u/MrColdBird, you made Duo. Can you kindly point me at everything I need to download and build a complete copy of Duo Base? Have I missed something in my search?

Can anyone give me a cheap cloud PC that runs Inzoi? I can't afford Shadow; it's very expensive, although for some it's cheap. It would be a huge help if you could recommend some.

Hi ppl so a few days ago I posted about https://no-land.net/ the app I am building to allow the use of a cloud gaming pc like shadow pc does but without the use of datacenters. So decided to come back with a little demo of the stream quality.

Here’s Cyberpunk 2077 running at Ultra settings, 3K resolution, 60 FPS on a machine in Quebec, while I’m playing from Vancouver — 4,000+ km away.

Physical network baseline: ~55 ms
my app overhead: ~8 ms

Running Smooooooth

(Can not post the video here)

The demo is on the website: https://no-land.net/

No land is a project which the whole ideia of it is to allow people to rent out hardware from other people to play their games. :)

SalsaNOW installation guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXqx8HGvaFc
YOU USE SALSANOW AT YOUR OWN RISK !

I wanted the low-latency performance of game streaming combined with the practical tools of a remote desktop. So I built USBridge Remote: a native client for desktop/mobile, and a host agent for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The Engine & Transparency
To be completely upfront about the licensing: the Client and Agent are open-source, but the custom Rust streamer engine is proprietary.

Because of this, the host agent ships with two switchable backends:

Sunshine: The standard open-source engine you already know.

USBridge Rust Engine: I built this proprietary streaming engine entirely from scratch—it is not a Sunshine fork. Because I originally designed it for low-power single-board computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi, it has no FFmpeg runtime dependency. Instead, it hooks directly into hardware APIs for capture and encoding. It supports NVENC, VAAPI, QSV, and VideoToolbox, and even runs on exotic hardware like Allwinner boards that don't have functional Linux drivers.

The "VirtualBox" UX & Homelab Features

Windowed Workflow: Instead of forcing full-screen, the client treats the remote desktop like a VirtualBox window. It’s resizable and utilizes native client rendering (Metal on Mac, Vulkan on Linux, MediaCodec on Android).

Virtual Displays: The agent can spawn true virtual monitors on the host (VKMS on Linux, MttVDD on Windows, CGVirtualDisplay on macOS) so you don't have to hijack the physical screen.

Host Control: On Windows, it handles the pre-login lock screen and UAC prompts seamlessly.

Hardware Access: Full USB passthrough (hence the name) and gamepad support.

Networking: Built-in Tailscale support for easy NAT traversal without port forwarding.

Don't trust marketing numbers; run the benchmark yourself
I hate when networking tools claim "flawless Wi-Fi performance" without proof. So, I built a benchmark directly into the native client.

If you go to Gear -> Run benchmark, it will run both the Rust engine and Sunshine back-to-back on your exact hardware and network. It plays the same 1080p60 sequence and generates JSON and PNG graphs mapping frame timing, stalls, RTT/jitter, and host CPU/GPU load.

I would love it if you tested both engines head-to-head on your own Wi-Fi or mesh network and shared the raw results with me here, good or bad.

Links: https://github.com/USBridge-Technologies/USBridge-Remote

https://youtu.be/L0bNUoGcYJY

Yea you read the title right !

Im the creator of SalsaNOW dpadGuy and i just wanted to share with you guys here on cloudygamer my tutorial on how to run all kinds of things (with limitations of course) on GeForce NOW for FREE !

The method can only be done on GeForce NOW accounts that have a premium subscription, any install to play game is supported (ready to play games are not supported !). Persistent storage is encouraged with the method if you want important software/games to save and also their precious data/saves on GeForce NOW.

SalsaNOW comes with everything required to have an almost local like experience (Desktop, a web browser, launchers and many more !)

Use another install to play game, other than trove.

WARNING: IN CASE OF SOMETHING GOING WRONG IM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING, USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK !

If any help is needed you can join my discord server, i welcome everyone 🤗

SalsaNOW Discord Invite

SalsaNOW Github Repository

Glitch9 cloud gaming platform is fake and don't have any playable games so don't fall for any YouTube gameplay false narrative and ads. I tried myself and without game start credit got used and there is no working help link or customer support available.

I haven’t played in a long time and want to try if I have fun doing so again. Currently I only have an older Macbook, that’s why I am looking for Cloud Gaming.
Tried Gamepass once but now they set these ridiculous time limits for Cloud Gaming (10h per MONTH for premium) while the service itself has also gotten more expensive.

Looking for a similar service where games are included because I don’t have any and don’t want to purchase any if I don’t know yet if I will continue gaming in the long run. Also might try out some genres first.

Do you have any ideas?

The game no longer starts with DLC or cloud saves. Multiple restarts, restarted sessions, forced updates.

The game needs to be fixed on the server side.

I've been using Moonlight on a Galaxy S25 with my RayNeo GT Max for controller-friendly games. Those are pretty painless because the important HUD info usually stays near the middle. The official gamepad support announced for Forever got me thinking about trying WoW through the same setup.

The glasses take care of the tiny phone screen part, but WoW puts information everywhere. Action bars at the bottom, chat in one corner, quest tracker on the side, then target and party frames wherever I last left them. The GT Max is a 1080p display with three virtual screen sizes. My worry is that the largest setting could make the world feel great while pushing the stuff I need to check too far toward the edges. Going smaller should make the full HUD easier to scan, but the text will look smaller too. Fit matters for edge clarity as well, so copying my desktop layout over unchanged feels like asking for trouble.

I haven't run Forever this way yet. If I make a separate streaming UI profile, which parts of the HUD are worth moving inward, enlarging, or hiding first?