Liability is why not.

Liability - the fact that someone is legally responsible for something and why developers, publishers DO NOT commit to games running on your PC because they CANNOT test every possible PC config out there. They list min, rec specs to remove liability.

Valve cannot commit to another developers game running on your PC, (liability) and would open themselves up to be sued by both the developer and the user.

Even those sites such as CanYouRunIt do not commit to a game running on your PC.

Developers, publishers maintain the store page so all information is provided by them.

The mantra is know your PC and what it is capable of.

Originally posted by tapo4ek:

As for the context, I understand that there are many services that can provide similar functionality or check it manually on their own, but let's say my graphics card is discrete and memory is allocated directly from RAM, and I don't always want to check each game separately, but it would be great to see suitable games through a filter.

It's not accurate at all. Those canirunit sites all give different results for the SAME game specs/hardware combo.

Even Microsofts compatibilitycheck in their store has always been wonky.

It not being accurate is why it's not a thing.

Do you have, inside your PC, the metal part of a toaster that heats up? Then you'll never play this: https://steamhost.cn/app/351450/Scribble_Space/

System requirements are guidelines, not hard rules.

Originally posted by tapo4ek:

Add an ironclad check for compliance with game requirements through the library filter

Compliance with what? Your expectations? So a magic filter? Or would you like to clarrify.

Originally posted by tapo4ek:

As for the context, I understand that there are many services that can provide similar functionality or check it manually on their own, but let's say my graphics card is discrete and memory is allocated directly from RAM, and I don't always want to check each game separately, but it would be great to see suitable games through a filter.

Would you care to provide and example, because with 26 years pf PC gaming experience, plus being a software developer, I know you know what you're thinking. But it's really hard to understand what you're saying because it's all vague and confused.

" let's say my graphics card is discrete and memory is allocated directly from RAM, and I don't always want to check each game separately, but it would be great to see suitable games through a filter"

Your graphics card is discrete, which means it's a physical card with its own VRAM. And memory is allocated from RAM. Ok, the GPU's memory? Because what discrete GPU relies on system RAM in such a way that it's relevant to the system requirements? So how would you filter for that?

(Yes I know the GPU's can use system RAM for overflow/additional resources. But it's not a primary concern as far as game performance/system requirements go. Either way it's a weird example to jump to when asking for a system requirements checker.)

Or when we're talking normal memory usage by the game. Ok, then it begs the question where would the memory be allocated from if not the RAM?

At any rate, it's not a bad idea, lots of people suggest endless variations of it. But there's reasons why it hasn't been done accurately a hundred times over. And it's not because no one's thought of it, or no one's asked for it, it's because there's serious and non-trivial hurdles in the way.

System requirements are extremely fuzzy and somewhat vague. Which makes filtering them, especially "ironclad" pretty much impossible. Part of the problem is system requirements are still kinda tied to what fits on the side of a box. Back in the day consistency was important. And now we might be able to move to a better system requirements that aren't hampered the same way. But that kinda change is difficult to do. And there's no particular good do to change.

But that's the problem, there's some pre-requisites needed for your request to be feasible, and re-imagining system requirements to be good from a data processing perspective doesn't seem likely any time soon. Even if we started today it would take years for the new requirements to be adopted and updated across most games.

So what are you gonna do in the meantime? Guess you'll have to learn how to interpret system requirements. It's not hard, millions of people have been doing it for decades. And arguably once you're able to do that, the importance of filters and whatnot becomes less of a priority.

Not saying things shouldn't change, just saying change can be difficult and time consuming.

System requirements are like custom info boxes for game devs. I love Scribble Space so much that I attached my hardware parts to my toaster that promised not to heat them up. A finest work.