I can get a quick framerate off of most games, but that’s not all I need. A friend and I are in need of something which will scan the system, see where the “bottlenecks” and problem areas are, and perhaps even recommend upgrades (RAM, new video card, etc.). TIA.
Hmm, Windows Vista has something damn close to this (it gives all of your specs a rating ending in an overall 1-5 system rating along with assigned min/reccomended ratings for each game), but it won’t tell you which processes and such are throttling your games.
I look forward to seeing if there is any stand alone programs that can actually gather data and tell you that, I’d lean on yes but I cannot find any.
Hmmm. I’ve not heard of anything like this, but people write software for the most obscure imagineable things, so there is probably something that tries to do this. The big problem to my mind is that the bottlenecks will vary enormously depending on what games you are playing. Some need lots of RAM, some need a beefy GPU, some are CPU intensive - it all depends. It would even need to know what screen resolution you prefer to play at.
Your best bet is usually to pull the system specs using CPU-Z and GPU-Z, SysTool, or whatever similar tool came with your PC. Then post those details, along with a list of games you want to play, on a web forum frequented by nerds and wait for the conflicting advice to arrive. 
Things like 3DMark and PCMark from http://www.futuremark.com might be a place to start.
I think you’ll get much more useful results if you post specs here and let us guide you.
Basically:
- If you have less than 2GB of RAM, get more.
- Buy the fastest video card you can afford
- End all background processes that you don’t need while gaming. Run a lean clean machine.
- Ensure you have enough hard drive space free (at least 2GB or so.)
- Turn off System Restore
By doing those things I don’t upgrade my gaming PC more often than every 4 or 5 years.
I agree, I don’t believe it would be possible to write software to do this reliably. Humans are much better at jobs like this.
You might want to look at PC Wizard – it’s a benchmarking/hardware analysis program. It’s free, so the price is right.
Actually let me amend suggestion #2, I should instead say buy the fastest video card in the $150 range, that usually is a sweet spot between price and performance.
There is a website, CanIRunIt that let’s you pick a game and then runs a quick analysis of your system to let you know if you should be able to run it, and if not, why not.