Credit: Nvidia
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Cloud Gaming is one of the coolest pieces of technology in recent years, and it opens up PC gaming to a wide variety of gamers. With cloud gaming, you can play many popular games like Fortnite, Destiny 2, and Call of Duty without ever having to worry about if your PC can handle the increasing technical demands. There are many services out there that offer Cloud Gaming, and the two we will focus on in this article are Boosteroid and Nvidia’s GeForce Now.
Both services allow you to play games on almost any device, and they seem very comparable at first glance. In this article, we will be looking at each platform, and comparing their pricing, features, availability, gaming library, and performance.
Full disclosure, We are a Boosteroid affiliate, but I can assure you that this article isn’t designed to hard sell you on Boosteroid. I love their platform and have always heard great things about GeForce Now, so I was curious how they stacked up and if I was shopping for a cloud gaming service which one of these would come out on top.
Well… I think my answer here will surprise you.
GeForce Now vs Boosteroid
GeForce Now launched in January of 2017 and was developed by Nvidia. Nvidia has been making waves in tech over the last few years, and all of this growth could mean many more resources and improvements to its cloud gaming service. Boosteroid launched in 2019 and has seen a rapid increase in its growth, in March of this year, Microsoft announced a 10-year partnership with the service, which would see PC games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda join its service, and just shortly before a similar deal was promised to Nvidia for GeForce Now.
Pricing and Features
In terms of pricing their services are also fairly comparable, but GeForce Now will give you a few different options. There is a Free tier, which provides you with standard access to gaming services, a Priority tier for $9.99 per month which gives you priority access to premium services, a Premium Rig, a 6-hour session time length, and the ability to play games at up to 1080p, and 60fps. The third tier called Ultimate, for $19.99 per month gives you access to the best gaming rigs, an 8-hour session length, exclusive access to RTX 4080 servers, and the ability to play games in up to a 4K resolution, and 120fps.
Boosteroid’s service is much simpler, there is only one pricing option at a little under $10.00 per month, You can play games on their platform, but performance is similar to that of GeForce’s priority tier at 1080p and 60fps. Boosteroid also doesn’t have any game session time limit so that is something to consider if you’re one that tends to enjoy long gaming sessions.
When choosing an option, I chose to go with GeForce Now’s Priority tier for this comparison, because I wanted to get as close as I could to an apples-to-apples comparison, but I love that GeForce Now has an option above this. If you’re playing a visually stunning title, or just want to get the best performance, then GeForce Now’s Ultimate tier is the preferred choice.
Availability
Now that you know what each service costs, it’s important to know if you can access the services or not as neither platform is available everywhere. Boosteroid has servers in the United States, as well as other countries like Romania, Italy, Ukraine, the UK, Slovakia, France, Spain, Sweden, and others. I won’t mention all of the countries here, but if you are a gamer who plans to enjoy cloud gaming internationally, Boosteroid is an option to consider. On their site, there is a Speedtest, and I recommend doing this before you actually commit financially to Boosteroid. This way you can check your connection to ensure that you’ll have a good experience.
GeForce Now is primarily available in North America, and Europe, but they also have many international options available. Depending on the country you are located in, Boosteroid may be the better option for you.
Gaming Library
When it comes to the library of games, most of the games I wanted to play just so happened to be available on both platforms, but GeForce Now is the clear winner here with over 1,500 games available. Boosteroid’s Library is always expanding and is currently tallied at over 700 games that are available. Since we’ve partnered with Boosteroid we have much more insight as to the games that become available each month on their service, and we’ll update you on this site and on our YouTube channel when more information is received.
Games are purchased in the exact same way on either platform, you’ll buy them with your Steam or Epic Games Store account and can access them on either service without any issues.
Performance
Now I’ve had much experience jumping in and playing games on Boosteroid, and for this article, I had a similar experience. I was able to play games, connect, and even jump into multiplayer without any issues. GeForce Now was similar, it’s also easy to find something to play, jump in, and play your games, but the overall performance was much better using GeForce Now.
As I mentioned earlier, I compared the Priority tier for this review as this is the closest to Boosteroid’s in performance, but I seem to get a much smoother connection, and slightly improved picture quality with GeForce Now. I was concerned about GeForce’s limitations that are mentioned about the rig, and availability, but on this tier, I never had any issue nor did I have to wait to jump in and play any of the games I wanted.
My experience was very impressive overall, and If I had to play a game for a review, I’d prefer to play it on GeForce Now (sorry Boosteroid). The only gripes I have is the UI is not as easy to navigate as Boosteroid’s and it’s much easier for me to sort through and find the games I’d like to play on Boosteroid. Also, it’s very easy to access support on Boosteroid’s end, and the ability to test your connection beforehand if you run into any issues is a very nice feature.
Also exciting your games, is much easier to do on Boosteroid’s end, but it’s not totally impossible on GeForce Now it just takes a little getting used to, but these are only small complaints that I have that could be easily fixed with an update.
Final Thoughts
Both Boosteroid, and GeForce Now have something to offer gamers, and it will be great to see how these platforms grow and evolve in the future. It’s tough to say which platform is the clear winner in this comparison as I think it primarily depends on which one is available to you, and what games are you passionate about.
If you plan to play cloud gaming multiplayer games, and you are based in the United States, then you may consider GeForce Now, but if you are based internationally then Boosteroid may be the better option for you.
If you’d like to give Boosteroid a try, you can visit their website here.
If you’d like to try out GeForce Now, you can visit their website here.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Did this help you in choosing between both services? Let me know by leaving a comment down below.
