Microsoft is testing a new feature for the Xbox app for Windows that lets you see how well a game is running on your PC.
The feature is currently available for select games under the Xbox Insiders program. It shows with a label on the game page how smooth it is to play.
At the moment a number of games do not yet have a label. There you will find the message ‘Performance check not yet available’. This tells the app that a game’s stated system requirements have not yet been compared to your computer’s specifications.
The Verge reports that Microsoft is in the process of building a database of various performance metrics on various hardware. They can give a reliable indication by comparing the system requirements with your computer’s specifications, as some competing systems already do.
Analysis: Anything that makes PC games more accessible is a good thing
PC gaming is a rather opaque world for many. This is often due to long and sometimes incomprehensible lists of system requirements, but also due to the lack of knowledge about hardware specifications among many gamers.
If you’re trying to play casual PC games, is an AMD Radeon RX 5600XT better than an Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060 Super? Or an RTX 3080? What about processor generations? How many people can tell you if they’re running on a seventh-generation or better Intel processor?
It doesn’t seem very important, but an understandable label is a good start. Hopefully this feature will one day be able to tell you what specifically can be improved on your PC, but this label is a step in the right direction and makes for a nicer gaming experience for people.
