Turns Out Those ‘Game Boosters’ Aren’t Worth Running

Squeezing more juice from your hardware is an ever-present task for the dedicated PC gamer. A number of companies, including Razer, Wise and IOBit, have tossed their hats into the ring with so-called “game boosters”, which boast the ability to speed up your system automatically for the tasks of slaying dragons or shooting terrorists. But do they actually do anything?

The answer, unsurprisingly, is no. As gHacks’ Martin Brinkmann discovered after putting various offerings through their paces, none of the applications delivered significantly improved frame rates and a few even hurt performance.

Brinkmann tested the following applications:

  • Game Fire
  • IOBit Game Assistant
  • Razer Cortex Game Booster
  • ToolWiz Game Boost
  • Wise Game Booster

The default configuration provided the most consistent results, coming out ahead in three of seven tests. The rest all had their time in the limelight, with Game Assistant the only competitor that failed to post a better score. Even so, the benchmarks did not provide a convincing argument for any of the products.

There are caveats — given Brinkmann’s technical background, it’s unlikely his default setup was running anything taxing to begin with — invasive AV software, background downloads, etc. It’s possible these “boosters” work better on less maintained systems.

For the savvy tweaker however, it’s just one more thing cluttering up your notification tray.

Do “Game Boosters” improve PC gaming performance? [gHacks]


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