Nvidia unveils Grid Gaming System to jumpstart cloud gaming

Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang introduced the Nvidia Grid Gaming System tonight. That’s a mouthful, but the graphics chip maker says it will enable gamers to play in the cloud in a way that is much more convenient and efficient than can be done today.

It means gamers can log into high-end games on a Smart TV, even though the TV has no serious 3D graphics computing power itself. The game can access technology in a web-connected data center — which Nvidia calls the Grid — to do the computing in the data center, or cloud, and then send the results down to the gamer’s machine, wherever the gamer is playing. This means you could log into a laptop in your hotel room and play high-end games, even though your laptop is a relatively weak machine. The Grid, Huang said, will help fulfill the promise of cloud gaming.