Crystal ball: A seemingly minor update to the Steam beta client might lay the groundwork for Valve to collect performance data for many games across a wide variety of PCs. While the company's plans for the data remain unclear, it could inform shoppers how well games might run on hardware similar to their own.
According to the February 12 Steam beta patch notes, users can now automatically include hardware specs in game reviews and provide Valve with anonymized frame rate data. The features appear to be in the early stages of development but could eventually provide helpful performance metrics.
To enter the Steam beta and try the new features, head to Settings > Interface > Client Beta Participation, select Steam Beta Update, and restart the client. When writing a review on a game's store page, check the box labeled "Attach PC specs to this review" on the right, and a prompt will appear asking to add a new PC configuration.
After clicking the prompt, Steam will gather information about the device the client is running on and create a profile, which users can attach to reviews while logged in from anywhere. However, the initial release of the feature has some kinks to iron out. It sometimes cannot tell whether it is working within the Steam client or a web browser, and the hardware inspector may detect a PC's integrated graphics instead of the dedicated GPU.
Once Valve resolves these issues, attaching hardware specs to Steam reviews will make them more informative. For example, when reading reviews that complain about performance, shoppers and developers can now see whether the problems are tied to certain system configurations.
While the method for providing Valve with performance data remains unclear, the company aims to improve Steam by learning more about game compatibility. Frame rate data will not be tied to individual Steam accounts, but will be connected to information about hardware specs. The performance monitor that Valve added to Steam last year likely led to this development.
The company also states that it will first focus on collecting data from SteamOS devices, suggesting that it aims to gauge how various titles run on the Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine. However, the feature might become far more useful on Windows devices.
Steam's ubiquity in the PC gaming market has made the monthly Steam hardware and software survey one of the most widely cited snapshots of what CPUs, GPUs, and operating systems users have installed. Collecting game performance data on a similar scale could create a useful resource for developers and players.