Option to directly check of my hardware meets a game's specs

[TheRyderShotgun]

We've all received that survey prompt that asks to scan our PC's specs before, right?
I'm asking for a way to use that to compare against the minimum/recommended specs on a game's store page to see right away if I can run a particular game.

[nullable]

It won't work. The system specs listed on a game pages are just organize free text that can say anything and be fairly vague, which makes it pretty difficult to do the kind of comparisons you want and have them be reliably accurate.

Part of this is just historical, how system requirements have been for the last 30 years. And when something has that much momentum behind it, change can be hard.

The other issue is what do something like the minimum requirements mean?

Will a game barely run at lowest settings at 720p/30FPS? Will it run at 960p, mediumish settings at 40FPS? Or something else? When you wonder if a game will "run" what are your expectations. How bad does the performance have to before you decide it doesn't run? There's no standard for that and the minimum requirements are gonna be all over the place there too.

Lots of things will have to change about system requirements to standardize them and define what "minimum" performance should be defined as. Otherwise it's garbage in, garbage out, and no one really wants a tool like that.

[Wolf Knight]

too many part combinations, and there is too much liability for steam to do such a thing. If they say it can/should play and it doesnt, that is false advertising. if they say a game wont work and it does, they may get sued by the dev/publisher.

[Brian9824]

Please use the search. The short answer is its not accurate enough to be trustworthy and puts valve into legal liability if they are wrong. Numerous other companies including Microsoft have tried to do it in the past and scrap it because its just not accurate enough to be useful.

Then there is also the issue of "running" a game is subjective.

I mean how many FPS does a game need to run at to be runnable?
How many freezes or stutters a minute can it have?
At what settings?
Etc

Then there is also the fact that 2 people with the same hardware can have vastly different experiences based on their system, drivers, and what else has been installed.

Your best bet is to use sites like www.canirunit.com which doesn't guarantee its accurate and has no legal liability if they are wrong.

[Crazy Tiger]

Yeah, it would be lovely if such a thing would actually be accurate. Sadly it's not, as shown by both the various canirunit sites and Microsofts compatibilitycheck in their store.

The various canirunit sites all give different results, ratings and advice. Microsofts compatibilitycheck clears old laptops with underpowered CPU and no dedicated GPU for Microsoft Flight Simulator (the latest one, not the first one in the 80s :P).

As someone who played on a potato laptop for a long time, my advice is: If you are unsure, use 3 of those canirunit sites and take the average result as guideline. Over time you'll be able to make educated guesses what will and what won't run good enough.
I've played quite some games on that potato laptop that the various canirunit sites said wouldn't work.

[Thermal Lance]

Let's not forget the requirements are filled by hand and not by a database of hardware. This would need to be build from scratch for very little gain due to forementioned lack of accuracy.