Valve could well be giving Steam its most useful update ever: Frame rate estimates for games, based on how well they've been running on users' gaming PCs

Two months ago, Valve released a beta version of Steam that had an option to send anonymised frame rate data, with the general idea being that the information would help improve compatibility and performance on devices using SteamOS. However, one sharp-eyed Steam user has noticed some additions to the latest beta, and these suggest that Valve may well be looking at telling you roughly how fast a game will run on any gaming rig.

The user posted their findings at Resetera (via TechSpot), and the details all point to Valve rolling out its 'Framerate Estimator' at some point in the near future. Looking closer, it would appear to work like this: You enter a PC hardware configuration comprising a CPU, GPU, and the amount of system DRAM, or if you're using the Steam client directly, it will just grab that PC's details.

After that, you select a game, and then Valve shows you an estimate of the frame rate you should expect to see for that particular hardware configuration. The level of accuracy will depend heavily on the number of Steam users who have opted in to providing performance data, and I suspect Valve will only list games for which it has a decent-sized pool of data.

There isn't enough information in the Resetera post to determine whether the performance estimate will include details of resolution, quality settings, and so on, but in principle, the idea is a really good one.

Nearly 20 years ago, I managed YouGamers, a division of Futuremark, the creators of 3DMark (before it was snapped up by UL). We had a system called the Game-o-meter, which would scan your PC, just like Steam does when it collects data for the monthly Hardware Survey. From the enormous 3DMark database, the system would then generate a performance estimate for your rig.

We would then upload the same thing for a game's hardware requirements, and then compare the two on a webpage. For games that we reviewed, we also did additional performance testing across a broad scale of gaming PCs to further tweak the comparison. In other words, with a single button, you got a reasonable estimate as to how well that game would run on your PC.

While the Game-o-meter and Futuremark are both long gone, the system still lives on in 3DMark: When you upload a score to the UL database, it will show you how many frames per second you can expect to get in certain games, though you do have to purchase the full version of 3DMark to get the complete details.

Valve's idea seems to be much better all around. For one, it'll be free to use, but more importantly, the estimate you get will be based exclusively on that game's performance, and not a more generic figure.

It might be somewhat inaccurate to begin with, though, as Valve will need to update Steam so that everyone can easily submit performance data, rather than just those gamers using SteamOS.

It will take a while to populate Valve's database with sufficient information to make the estimate reliable, but once it's all there, it'll be a great way to see if a game has performance issues before you buy it. Such problems are often flagged up when something is reviewed at launch, but it rarely makes the headlines months or years down the line.

Here's a free tip for you, Valve: Make an achievement for Steam users that gives them different levels of badges for uploading 50, 100, or however many game frame rates. You'll probably get all the data you need in a matter of weeks.