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"Idea..."

I'm thinking of setting up a website where you can make a profile with your system specs, then upload screens from games - to give others an impression on how it will run on their machine and similar systems. Has this been done before? I can't find anywhere that does it to compare (reads "steal") ideas. Good/bad idea?

Ok, I've started work on this now.

Got a neat little design and a domain (www.geeksmadethis.com, which I was going to use for my freelance web work, but suits this quite well). Thinking about the cross-referencing to find results, there'll be two search types - basic and advanced. The basic one will search for a game title, then narrow down by CPU speed, RAM, GFX card make/memory. The advanced will use the makes/models of these to narrow down even further, and a few other details like mobo.

If you look at the back of a game box they only list vague details, so I think the basic search will be enough as a base to make the site worthwhile and function properly. There's no need going overboard for a basic search when we all go by what's on the back of a box. I may need some help with the advanced search, but I'll come back to this later...

The point of the site is to view user's screenshots alongside specs, so you can get a clear impressions of how your machine might perform. The focus should be on finding titles first, then filtering for specs. Making this clear now before anyone goes "Oh I typd Nvydeor n gt 1 mylleon rezltz!".

Adding a game will involve submitting the title, checking against a list of similar names if they exist, then creating a new record if not. Anyone can then add images to the title.

Adding an image will make a record of your current system specs (which will be used in the search) and allow you to add a comment. Other users can add comments to your image too.

You need a profile to post titles and images and comments. This will just be username, email address, website (optional) and system specs, which will be tailored carefully to fit in with the search fields. All this can be updated at any time.

I'll probably have a news section to fill up the frontpage and pad up the sides a bit, and I'll definitely be pushing to get some advertising if it works. So I'm off to think about this now. There's no point in suggesting stuff to me yet, I'm quite definite and sure on what I'm doing.

On the demo...

:P it's ok i forgive you for not getting it done, i assume you've been BF2-ing it up.......oh wait no you haven't.

Yeah...

www.suckmyballs.you

Is it done yet?

The approach I'm using is kind of how I look at buying a game - how good can it look on my machine? No need for it to be complicated, just give users a chance to show how a certain game looks on their minimum specs (usually nothing like the back of the box), and what differences other user's have in their components.

You know, file upload or entering specs in manually arent mutually exclusive ideas. Nothing to say you cant have both. :)

I'd imagine monkey man would implement a dropdown box type system where you could just choose the component you have.

A few mouse clicks -> submit -> job done.

But they would have to type there specs up, if they could upload a file it would stop them from having to type them up.

I would say 95% of the people that use it would know their specs by heart.