A new update coming to Steam could potentially save you a load of money in the long term.
Picture this: you buy a new RPG on Steam, install it, start playing through the prologue and it runs well. But then you get a few hours in and have hit the open world section, and the framerate has absolutely tanked.
It’s a frustrating position to be in, where you’re not really sure if your PC can handle a game’s technical requirements and learn it the hard way after you’ve gone beyond the refund window.
An upcoming update Valve is making to Steam aims to fix this by giving you an estimation of how a game may run on your hardware before you’ve purchased it.
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As reported by a Steam dataminer by the name of Dex3108 on ResetEra, a new set of strings have appeared on SteamDB’s backend which seemingly confirm this feature to be in development.
Dex3108 shares an image showing some of the new strings that have appeared, with an entry labelled as “Framerate Estimator” appearing at the top. This is followed by a subhead which says “Select an App and a PC config to get a chart of estimated framerates, based on the framerates of other Steam users.”
Steam Could Show You How Well A Game Might Run On Your PC
It basically looks like Steam’s integration of a website like Can You Run It, a tool which scans your PC hardware to determine how well you may be able to run a game.
It’ll be useful for players with lower-end hardware, where modern AAA releases may not run perfectly on the system due to the age and power of its components.
As a result, it should hopefully help you decide whether you want to make a purchase or not on a new game which potentially might not run well on your system. It could save you money in the long run as you prioritise collecting games which do run better on your PC.
Meanwhile, Steam has recently updated its storefront with new optimisations and altered designs, allowing you to see more recommendations on the front page.
On the other hand, the new update doesn’t seem to have improved the quality of the recommendations being sent your way, with some complaints targeting how tagging works on the client.