Legally not possible without user's consent, see GDPR.

I do not want to be snooped at how i play certain games, that's for sure.

Even then it's inaccurate at best because same hardware doesn't necessarily mean same performance because not every system is configured the same way.

Furthermore, the system requirement info fields are form free text fields instead of static fields in which to add or select hardware components from.

Problem is they can't predict if a game is well optimized, I mean nowadays some modern games run like crap even on the most powerful hardware even if it should run well

Liability is why not.

Liability - the fact that someone is legally responsible for something and why developers, publishers DO NOT commit to games running on your PC because they CANNOT test every possible PC config out there. They list min, rec specs to remove liability.

Valve cannot commit to another developers game running on your PC, (liability) and would open themselves up to be sued by both the developer and the user.

Even those sites such as CanYouRunIt do not commit to a game running on your PC. They give you a general idea.

The mantra is know your PC and what it is capable of based on the current games you have.

By the way - because Valve cannot know how well certain games will run on certain systems is why the refund policy of up to two hours playtime and up to two weeks after purchase exists.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Ettanin:

Legally not possible without user's consent, see GDPR.

I do not want to be snooped at how i play certain games, that's for sure.

Even then it's inaccurate at best because same hardware doesn't necessarily mean same performance because not every system is configured the same way.

Furthermore, the system requirement info fields are form free text fields instead of static fields in which to add or select hardware components from.

Understandable but don't they already log hardware for the steam hardware survey?

Or is it an opt in system in the EU? I wouldn't mind if it saved said data locally and i had the option to send it.

In addition to that the data could also be anonymized locally before sending it to Valve.

Opprinnelig skrevet av SpeedFreak1972:

Problem is they can't predict if a game is well optimized, I mean nowadays some modern games run like crap even on the most powerful hardware even if it should run well

Wouldn't this system also help us figure out which games are well optimized?

If a game says for example that an RTX5060 is recommended and people with an RTX5060 get 30FPS that could be an issue.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Nx Machina:

Liability is why not.

Liability - the fact that someone is legally responsible for something and why developers, publishers DO NOT commit to games running on your PC because they CANNOT test every possible PC config out there. They list min, rec specs to remove liability.

Valve cannot commit to another developers game running on your PC, (liability) and would open themselves up to be sued by both the developer and the user.

Even those sites such as CanYouRunIt do not commit to a game running on your PC. They give you a general idea.

The mantra is know your PC and what it is capable of based on the current games you have.

Understandable however i think they could get a more accurate measurement with a lot of user data and all the various Steam APIs that are being used when you play a game.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Ettanin:

By the way - because Valve cannot know how well certain games will run on certain systems is why the refund policy of up to two hours playtime and up to two weeks after purchase exists.

That's fair but if we can go one step ahead of the refund policy then why not?

Opprinnelig skrevet av svin:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Ettanin:

Legally not possible without user's consent, see GDPR.

I do not want to be snooped at how i play certain games, that's for sure.

Even then it's inaccurate at best because same hardware doesn't necessarily mean same performance because not every system is configured the same way.

Furthermore, the system requirement info fields are form free text fields instead of static fields in which to add or select hardware components from.

Understandable but don't they already log hardware for the steam hardware survey?

Only with user consent as conformant per GDPR. The survey is opt-in in the EU.

But still, collecting hardware info and benchmarking data is still horribly inaccurate because the logger won't know what software and drivers will throttle or deoptimize the measured system.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Ettanin:

Opprinnelig skrevet av svin:

Understandable but don't they already log hardware for the steam hardware survey?

Only with user consent as conformant per GDPR. The survey is opt-in in the EU.

thank you for explaining this.

Anyway we can argue about it but in the end of the day valve devs are the ones who look into it and probably their legal department.

Systems and their configuration are too variable to make an accurate guess. PCs aren't consoles.

If such method was feasible, Valve would have considered and implemented it years ago.

Opprinnelig skrevet av svin:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Ettanin:

Only with user consent as conformant per GDPR. The survey is opt-in in the EU.

thank you for explaining this.

Anyway we can argue about it but in the end of the day valve devs are the ones who look into it and probably their legal department.

It's not a new idea. If it was so simple to do, there would be a dozen of mature high quality options, and you'd know about them already.

So... why aren't things like that? Once you understand the answer to that question, you'll know why "valve devs" ain't gonna waste their time.

The TL:DR; trying to get highly accurate results from fuzzy, non-standardized slop data is easy to imagine, not easy to do. And no one really wants a tool that's kinda sorta useful, and sometimes not wrong... OH NO I've described AI, guess I'm wrong.

New I idea, just use AI. You'll get the same results.

Opprinnelig skrevet av svin:

Understandable however i think they could get a more accurate measurement with a lot of user data and all the various Steam APIs that are being used when you play a game.

There are multiple PC configurations out there and not just hardware but also what software is installed and why there is no "it will run at level X."

What can affect performance?

Failing hardware the user is not aware of such as ram, graphic card etc.

Realtime antivirus/malware scanning, Windows indexing enabled, borked Windows update, graphic driver issues, soundcard driver issues, undetected malware etc.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Nx Machina:

Opprinnelig skrevet av svin:

Understandable however i think they could get a more accurate measurement with a lot of user data and all the various Steam APIs that are being used when you play a game.

There are multiple PC configurations out there and not just hardware but also what software is installed and why there is no "it will run at level X."

What can affect performance?

Failing hardware the user is not aware of such as ram, graphic card etc.

Realtime antivirus/malware scanning, Windows indexing enabled, borked Windows update, graphic driver issues, soundcard driver issues, undetected malware etc.

Any tool that would tell you if you could run a game, and maybe a scale of 'how well', would have to assume properly functioning hardware, and a machine that ISN'T cluttered with bloatware/malware/virus/etc. There is literally tons of data out there on individual part performance, so doing so would be possible... (considering it has already been done.....) But, yes, there are a LOT of variables that go into how well anything runs and any particular set of hardware. So, best case would be a 'range' of performance for any given machine.....

Opprinnelig skrevet av HeyYou:

Any tool that would tell you if you could run a game, and maybe a scale of 'how well', would have to assume properly functioning hardware, and a machine that ISN'T cluttered with bloatware/malware/virus/etc. There is literally tons of data out there on individual part performance, so doing so would be possible... (considering it has already been done.....) But, yes, there are a LOT of variables that go into how well anything runs and any particular set of hardware. So, best case would be a 'range' of performance for any given machine.....

It did so well for Microsoft that they removed it from the OS. They tried again with the Microsoft Store and it tells user X they cannot run game Y when in fact they can.

So why is it those CanYouRunSites do not commit to a game running without performance issues on your PC? Liability is why not.

In theory, it does look like a good idea. But in practice, the variables are so wildly diverse that it would require users to "know" how to read the data. Granted, it's not hard to read and interpret it, but I would reckon most would not spend those 2 seconds to think about what they read. They will just go with "I have this and this and still doesn't run".
And that would be in. Something like that will be "somewhat" reliable within a wide range of variables that cannot be controlled and does require a tiny little bit of knowledge. Users not knowing or not caring to know about some variables would completely throw the "perceived" reliability out the door. And the feature would be deemed as "trash" or any other bad adjective you can think of.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Nx Machina:

Opprinnelig skrevet av HeyYou:

Any tool that would tell you if you could run a game, and maybe a scale of 'how well', would have to assume properly functioning hardware, and a machine that ISN'T cluttered with bloatware/malware/virus/etc. There is literally tons of data out there on individual part performance, so doing so would be possible... (considering it has already been done.....) But, yes, there are a LOT of variables that go into how well anything runs and any particular set of hardware. So, best case would be a 'range' of performance for any given machine.....

It did so well for Microsoft that they removed it from the OS. They tried again with the Microsoft Store and it tells user X they cannot run game Y when in fact they can.

So why is it those CanYouRunSites do not commit to a game running without performance issues on your PC? Liability is why not.

The disclaimers are precisely BECAUSE no two machines are the same. I can likely run games better on my older hardware, than some folks with even more beefy machines, because mine does NOT have 60 things starting up with windows, an 'antivirus' that wants to do everything, for everyone, and thus has dozens of running processes, etc. They are 'only an approximation' simply because of the above reason. Folks are doing it. There are sites out there for just such an occasion, but in the end, no, you can't take them as the gospel truth. Which they point out in there terms of service/disclaimers. Liability becomes a non-issue. It is up to the consumer to make the decision to buy or not. The sites are merely a guide.

Opprinnelig skrevet av HeyYou:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Nx Machina:

It did so well for Microsoft that they removed it from the OS. They tried again with the Microsoft Store and it tells user X they cannot run game Y when in fact they can.

So why is it those CanYouRunSites do not commit to a game running without performance issues on your PC? Liability is why not.

The disclaimers are precisely BECAUSE no two machines are the same. I can likely run games better on my older hardware, than some folks with even more beefy machines, because mine does NOT have 60 things starting up with windows, an 'antivirus' that wants to do everything, for everyone, and thus has dozens of running processes, etc. They are 'only an approximation' simply because of the above reason. Folks are doing it. There are sites out there for just such an occasion, but in the end, no, you can't take them as the gospel truth. Which they point out in there terms of service/disclaimers. Liability becomes a non-issue. It is up to the consumer to make the decision to buy or not. The sites are merely a guide.

Valve has no requirement that the minimum requirements are even accurate. Liability is already a total fantasy in these discussions.