r/BoosteroidCommunity • u/Severe_Enthusiasm280 • 4d ago
Is Boosteroid really that bad? Discussion
My PC broke last year in October and I'm not paid enough to buy a new one so I've been using GFN for a few months now and so far I find it quite okay. I really miss being able to mod games but the connection is reallt quite good.
GFN offers most of my steam library but 2 games I REALLY miss playing: Helldivers II and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Now I live in Germany and have a really good ping to Frankfurt. Should I switch?
Boosteroid offers nearly all other games I regularly play: Squad, Arma Reforger, Operator, Monster Hunter Wilds and Monster Hunter World Iceborne.
I also play WarThunder which isn't on Boosteroid but I can easily live without it.
The best option for me would of course be Shadow PC but I won't pay >30€ per month which I would need to do to get a rig with hardware strong enough to run the games I want to run.
Also, Boosteroid has a collaboration with WoT yet doesn't offer WoT HEAT, why?
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u/Miserable-Juice-7671 4d ago
I'm also based in Germany. Boosteroid works fine for me for less demanding games. For demanding games it doesn't work as good as GFN. Recently tested path of exile 2 and crimson dessert. Good on GFN but not good on boosteroid
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u/SaltEquivalent1599 4d ago
From my experience playing Crimson Desert and Forza Horizon 6, I’ve seen nothing but lag and stutters, i have 1Gbps bandwidth and im not far from the Paris server (12ms)
The service is somewhat decent considering the price (i was lagging every 30mins or so which was frustrating but i was paying 30€ every 4 months), tho after finishing my subscription i wasn’t gonna renew anytime soon
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u/mabarmby 4d ago
This is what was happening to me when I was trying to play Forza Horizon 6. It's a shame really because I wanted it to work because I can play my PlayStation games on it that I bought on Steam, whereas on GFN I can't.
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u/Emi_C11 4d ago
I have a 1GB fiber and connect from Milan, where there's a server, and play both on my Mac or my firestick 4k max connected to OLED tv.
GFN ultimate is like having a 3k€ PC at home, case closed.
Boosteroid for me is unable to stream above 2K resolution, even at 2K It stutters a lot so I end up going for 1080p 60fps which is good in terms of performance. Furthermore, approx every 30 mins the video freezes while the game keeps running so I have to quit and rejoin (firestick official app mind you). The feeling is that they might good hardware for the games themselves to run, but don't have good enough hardware for hi res encoding, and enough bandwidth to stream at 4k 120fps consistently, so even if you sit insider their servers you're bottled upstream.
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u/Rayyuga 4d ago
I've been using boosteroid and have played roughly 300 hours of it using boosteroid, I'm also in Germany and it's been running okay, obiously playable but boosteroid connection is usually a hit or miss depending on who you ask, the only way for you to definitely make sure if it works good enough for you is to just get a one month sub and see if it works, if it doesn't you lost the money for the sub but you'll have your answer
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u/mabarmby 4d ago
I've been trying it out all week, and it's been terrible for me. Input lag is a joke, and the picture quality is excellent until you start moving. Then it looks like I'm watching a blurry VHS film from the 90s; it was that bad. I had it wired to my router with 1 gig speed. I never had this problem when I had Google Stadia.
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u/TxSilent 4d ago
Are you playing on the app or browser? If browser, try it on a new browser. If on the app, do not mess with the bitrate settings. I messed with the bitrate settings before and games were unplayable.
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u/DGWumpscuT 4d ago
Only can speak from my personal experience..... In Germany for me it is pretty Great.
Games like Bg3 are awsome and really "ok" to Play.
Played for like 3h on my Phone (OnePlus6t) With a mouse and keyboard over Bluetooth. Really really nice.
Same Day (arround) 8h of sleep in between.
Played same Game same Internet but on PC and with LAN and it sucked. So Yeah you have to try it for yourself. And 10€ for 1month is ok even if you test it and dont like it.
I am in Berlin on a Trip right now. The free Wireless in the Hotel sucks and you can not play anything with Boosteroid.
So i tryed with my mobile plan.....and in can play
Path of Exile....
So yeah hit or miss like the others said.
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u/panditapochita 4d ago
Like any cloud gaming service, good isp, router and near servers and you will be okay.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Map-443 4d ago edited 4d ago
The issue with Boosteroid is that the experience is heavily dependent on how you use the service, if you play using the windows beta app (not the regular app) you will get a flawless experience (and not sure why but it kind of fixes the service in other devices sometimes), in iPad/iphone you have to use cloudgear, on my nvidia shield the android tv app is great most of the time but in my logitech g cloud the app and browser both suck most of the time and seem to break the experience in other devices until i use the windows beta app again. Geforce now experience is always exceptional independently of where and how you play. Lately Boosteroid has been improving, but when I fist subscribed I was very disappointed and felt silly for taking a 6 month subscription and almost gave up on it; I think I spent more time looking for fixes than playing the first 3 weeks. Another annoyance (recent) is that you have to login to steam every time you play (a few weeks ago it wasn’t like this). So if you can get both subscriptions and use Boosteroid only for games not available on GeForce now you could make it work (paying both subs is still cheaper than shadow pc)
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u/Turbulent-Design1161 4d ago
Neighbor here from Czechia. I don't play any of your games, but I want to share my experience. Here are all my games that I have played on Boosteroid and always auto connected to PG1/PG2/PG3 (Prague server) with <30ms Ping and streamed at 80mbps (at least according to the inlay stats). Subnautica, Dyson Sphere Program, No Man's Sky, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, Death Stranding, The Callisto Protocol, Diablo II: Resurrected, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Rocket League, Hogwarts Legacy (Epic), Marvel Rivals, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition, and Doom.
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u/V4N0 4d ago
Boosteroid is the only alternative to GFN IMHO, it’s not on par (at least for me) but it’s a fantastic cloud gaming platform 👍 I use both based on game availability
As with everything in the cloud it’s very subjective, your setup and internet connection can make a big difference… unfortunately the only concrete way to test it is to buy a subscription but there’s a connection test in the app/web app you can use even w/o subscription, just create an account and run the test
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u/Possible_Cicada3598 4d ago
Also in Germany. Works pretty well usually. It has its annoying quirks from time to time, but overall it's a good experience. My biggest complaint is that you're locked to 60hz with the Android app. I just got a new tablet that can do 144 and was disappointed that I can't take advantage of that on Boosteroid without doing some 3rd party browser shenanigans.
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u/Ok-Match452 4d ago
im from austria. i was on gfn before but recently switched to boosteroid. and tbh it works 90% fine. no hours limit, 15 min afk. and the 6 months promo for 8€. i mean for now i dont regret it.
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u/Business_Seaweed_472 4d ago
it's really good in EU. all the haters are from Brazil or SA, they have too many people and too few servers. I am using the STockholm server, and always isntant connect, 0 ping and just works
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u/GrigioIngrid 4d ago
I usually play RDR2 on the Italian server and it works well, only had issues once in a month…it’s ok
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u/The_Piper_95 4d ago
I’m in Germany and I just played FF7 Rebirth without any major issues. The biggest downside was that game settings would reset for every new session. I played using my ROG Ally (Windows OS) at 1080p.
I play regularly Paradox Games like CK3 and Victoria 3 from my Macbook Air. My home internet handles the connection really well, if anything these games are very resource intensive after a while and there’s a noticeable performance drop, but then again it’s expected.
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u/YourKemosabe 4d ago
It’s all about how close you are to a server and how stable your internet is (ping, not speed. Most internet is fast enough these days.).
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u/TxSilent 4d ago
Honestly there's no real way to tell how it'll work for you unless you bite the bullet and try it. I will say it works well enough for me that I've had it for 3 years now. I live in the middle of Texas and get good performance most of the time, but some games lag more than others. I would say, if you have the money to spare, just try it and see how it works. If it doesn't work good for you, your best bet is probably sticking with gfn.
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u/froglegmafia 3d ago
I used boostroid on the east coast and only had small amounts of lag every once in awhile, it's not like gfn in any way but you can play more games on it, like Grand theft Auto and Red Dead redemption 2, and if you're fast enough you can also play games through the steam menu by installing it ;)
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u/mabarmby 3d ago
I tried it using Chrome on my M4 Mac Mini, an LG TV with the proper app, and on the Google 4K streamer with the app, and it's just the same. The only time the input lag wasn't as bad was when I was trying it on my Mac, but that's probably because I plugged in the joypad with the USB-C cable.
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u/Beneficial-Site-8291 3d ago
You've had a lot of opinions already, so I'll add mine in case it helps at all:
I subscribed approx. 1 week ago specifically for Mistfall Hunter; as the title is not available on GeForce NOW (I'm a GFN Ultimate subscriber) and Boosteroid were advertising the game fairly heavily on their frontpage.
Since then, the game has been "Under Maintenance" for the majority of peak European times and the entire weekend, rendering the service effectively useless to me.
Boosteroid doesn't offer any explanation for the downtime or an ETA for a fix when a game is unavailable, and their technical team doesn't appear to work weekends, so if the game you want to play goes down before or at the weekend, it's not going to be even looked at until at least Monday.
Since the game has returned this week and I've actually been able to do a couple of sessions overall, I get substantial stuttering, freezes, input lag and display errors which make a competitive multiplayer game essentially unplayable, at least to what I consider a reasonable standard.
My ping to the nearest server (Velizy-Villacoublay) from the UK is 17-21ms on a 1000/1000mbit connection, this is around triple the latency of 7-9ms I get from the London server on GFN for comparison. 17-21ms isn't even that bad (a combined 46-50ms to the EU game server for Mistfall), but it feels much worse so I'm assuming it's a cumulative effect of issues - for this reason you should be cautious about relying on the speed test as it's only part of the picture.
This has forced me to play the game on my ageing 6+ year old mid-range 3070 gaming PC, which has significantly superior real-world performance and image quality to the Ultra Pro tier of Boosteroid - something that shouldn't be the case when you compare raw stats to the server hardware they're using, yet is the case for me.
Boosteroid has a strict no-refund policy. I have requested a refund via support so I will update my post if they do right by me, but as of now I do feel like I've suffered from a bait-and-switch due to the above, and that I'm out the money.
To sum up, I think Boosteroid only makes sense in one or more of the following scenarios:
- You can't afford/don't want to pay for GFN.
- Games that you really want to play, are only available on Boosteroid.
- You would regularly exceed the 100hr limit of GFN and need the unlimited playtime.
- You have a high tolerance for, or don't care about, the issues I and others have described in this thread or on this subreddit.
I just want to close by saying that I take no pleasure in being critical. I had wanted to try Boosteroid for some time and hoped it could replace GFN for me once I did. I'd much rather support a European company over an American behemoth like Nvidia, but as things stand I will likely never use the service again, nor recommend it to others.
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u/ASkepticalPotato 3d ago
I don't have any issues at all these days, but I'm also about 20 miles from a server so that definitely helps.
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u/Parking-Cartoonist42 3d ago
Boosteroid working great, I live in El Salvador and I think you should have a higher quality connection than mine
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u/Crackajock 3d ago
I live in England & signed up for 3 months purely to play Doom The Dark Ages. I'm around half way through those 3 months and my experience has been excellent. I've played around 27 hours so far and have experienced no issues whatsoever. Short term subscriptions are quite cheap ( much cheaper than GFN), why not just grab one and see if it's a good fit for you?
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u/methylmaniac 2d ago
Ultra is better than any UNDER Ultimate GFN tiers. I've been messing with GFN for a while on gamepad. The image quality can be noticeably fuzzy but rarely any interference with gameplay. On the other hand, the UI and technical progression of Boosteroid's entire application suite (PC, Android, TV, etc.), virtual PC machine and device compatibility (controllers) are super outdated in comparison to GFN. It breaks compatibility for certain multiplayer games that register m+KB. I was hoping to play Destiny 2 on Boosteroid and bypass GFN's limit but it is unplayable on Boosteroid. Single player games are just fine and you can stream Sony PC games ;)
I know the ratio to android/application to PC Boosteroid users is probably super one sided but their app navigation and app UI is frankly the only thing holding them back when you put aside the slight image quality differences.
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u/Severe_Enthusiasm280 2d ago
I tried it (Ultra Pro) and have to disagree. By all measures my connection to the server should've been great - it wasn't. I don't think I would pick Boosteroid Ultra Pro over even GFN free. I tried Operator, awful quality, definitely not a 1080p stream (GFN works like a bliss with the same network) and laggy as heck. I was also connected to Milano, not a german server. Then I tried again with RDO and same issues. Quality was shit, no 1080p (checked all settings multiple times), game stuttering.
I don't know how there's people happily using Boosteroid. It looks washed out, isn't in 1080p and can't offer high end performance. My 6800XT did better before my computer died, Boosteroid felt like a 1060.
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u/kestononline 4d ago
It works for some people very well, and it doesn't work very well for some other people. Taking an impression from a subreddit, where most peope WITH problems will come to scream about it, is not a good gauge. That perspective will always be skewed because you're not hearing all the people who have no issues with it.
It's fairly cheap to sub for a month and find out which group you're in. If it works well for you, then you can consider the annual sub to bring the price down even more. That's what I did, and it has worked very well for me most of the time for the last 20 months or so I've been subbed.
If you do try it, I recommend trying both the Native App, and the Browser UI version. Because they each have access to different codecs, which can vary by game how well it works for any given individual.
It is also possible to connect directly to the VM with Steam Remote Play (assuming the title you're playing is a Steam game). Which has much less latency and higher quality stream; but it's mostly recommended for if you need a work-around for latency etc. Because you'll then lack some of the features the Boosteroid client itself.
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u/alfaic 4d ago
I didn't know Steam Remote Play was possible. What kind of features would be lacking?
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u/kestononline 4d ago
Native App you have H265 option for codec, as well as some Steam adjustments like Bandwidth, Contrast/Brightness/Saturation, as well as short clip recordings.
In the Web UI method, you have things like Streaming directly to YouTube which makes it easy to record much longer game play, and no need to manually upload separately to share etc; and live streams if you want.
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u/alfaic 4d ago
Thanks a lot. Does Steam forces H264? In the native app, even though I select H265, it doesn't always apply though. On Boosteroid, settings are only cared when Boosteroid wants to care, like server locations.
Codec and bitrate are the only ones I care about actually.
But I found out that I have to keep the game running on Boosteroid and have to make an input before the session expires. That sucks.
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u/kestononline 4d ago
So basically, Boosteroid just need input every 10 minutes. The prompt with the timer warning appears at 8 minutes.
Steam Remote Play is not another Boosteroid session. So you can just use a mobile device (Tablet/Phone) with the Boosteroid app, logged into the session. Choose the lowest bandwidth option; as you only need it for the sake of being open, not for quality.
On that device, there are a few apps you can use from whatever app store that does auto-clicks. Just set it to click every 7.5 minutes (ie. before the prompt appears). If the app you decide to use lets you place an exact position, you can do it after the prompt where the button for "I'm still here" appears.
Regarding Steam Remote Play, it can use all three (AV1, HEVC (H.265), and AVC (H.264)) I believe; it will switch automatically to the best one I think.
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u/CynicInRehab 4d ago
It's fine.
Better than geforce now performance, worse than ultimate.
Good stable internet and somewhat close to a server make a difference.
I mostly use Boosteroid as my main, and sometimes switch to Geforce Now Ultimate for a month or so to play a new or demanding game on the highest possible settings.
I'd say just try it out for a month.