Back in February, Valve offered beta testers a chance to share anonymized frame rate data with the company. Now, it seems they’re not just collecting this information—they’re planning to use it to create a ‘framerate estimator’ tool, likely launching in future updates.
The April 3rd Steam client update includes references to this new feature, allowing users to select an application and a PC configuration to receive estimated frame rates based on data from other Steam users. This means you’ll soon be able to predict your game’s performance before hitting ‘play’.
According to the JSON file, these estimates can be made using CPU, GPU, and system RAM levels selected by the user or saved within the Steam client. The tool will also provide information on the number of matching training entries those estimates are based upon for that game and/or applicable hardware configuration.
This move towards predictive analytics could help gamers optimize their setups, but it may also raise privacy concerns. After all, who wouldn’t want to know exactly how others’ systems perform?
