MySQL sorting issue

Sorting by different criteria

[skyblue webteam]

I have the problem with sorting rows by different criteria. I have games table and among others, there are rate and category columns. What i want is to select 4 most popular games from all categories, i mean 4 most popular action games, 4 strategies etc. I hope i described my problem well. SQL experts, help me please! :)

Thanks in advance,
Milan

[phranque]

let me be first to welcome a long time lurker to WebmasterWorld, milan!

are you trying to do this in one query?
i believe it would take one query to get the categories and then N queries to get the top rated 4 in each category.

[skyblue webteam]

Thanks. It's great to be here. ;)

Yeah, i know i could do this with N queries, but i'm trying (if that is possible at all) to join them into on, so i could save server resources.