What you need to know
- It seems as though Google has decided against developing support for Chromebooks with NVIDIA graphics.
- The move comes after Snapdragon 7c Chromebooks were also seemingly canceled.
- There doesn't seem to be any reason for this decision, with the code commit simply saying they "are all canceled."
Earlier this year, it was discovered that Google was working with partners to bring new Chromebooks that included built-in NVIDIA graphics cards. However, it seems as though hopes for a true gaming Chromebook have been dashed, as the project has been canceled.
As pointed out by About Chromebooks, a comment shared a recent Chromium Gerrit commit which revealed that the "Herobrine, Hades, and Agah" boards "are all cancelled." The commit goes on to say that the "infra (overlays, builders, etc) have already been shut down for them. Delete."
Normally, this wouldn't be all that surprising, but what stands out is that three boards are being canceled outright. Kevin at About Chromebooks discovered this is because "they all were designed to support Nvidia GPUs."
This is obviously disappointing, given the focus on gaming Chromebooks following the launch of the Chromebook 516 GE and others in the fall of 2022. It's also causing us to wonder a bit about whether we'll see new or exciting designs with future Chromebooks.
Google has also "canceled" its development of Chromebooks powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3. This would have led the way for more ChromeOS-powered tablets, but it seems that the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 will remain the best in this regard.
Ultimately, the end result means that we'll likely be "stuck" with onboard graphics to handle all of our gaming needs on Chromebooks. While this is fine in most instances, even when playing Steam games, it just means that you might need to look into NVIDIA GeForce Now if you want to play something like Baldur's Gate 3 on a Chromebook.
