How Accurate are "Minimum System Requirements?"
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
1,078 words · ~5 min read
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so you've recently decided to get into the world of pc gaming but
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given that your seven-year-old computer struggles just to boot into Windows you
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find yourself wondering aloud how in the world am i going to run those
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fancy new aaa titles that my favorite streamers are playing on thousand dollar
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hardware but wait the listed minimum system requirements
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on the side of the box or excuse me web page
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actually seem pretty close to what you have
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so why is everybody running out buying prohibitively expensive hardware just to
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play games well first off on a console most games are
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tweaked to run in a predictable consistent manner on one specific
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hardware configuration or at most like five
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but running well may mean different things
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to different people and this is particularly true of pc gamers
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so typically the minimum requirements you see on steam or on a game studios
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website are close to the bare minimums
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to get the game running or at least walking we're talking low quality
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settings at a low resolution with still
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low frame rates and while this actually might be good
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enough for a lot of people many others would probably be left feeling
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unsatisfied from time to time game studios also
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based their minimum requirements on the hardware that is technically compatible
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at all rather than on a minimum bar of acceptable performance for example a
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game might be coded in such a way that it requires the graphics card to support
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certain instructions to produce specific visual effects
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so if the earliest gpus that support everything the game needs are say five
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years old then the minimum requirements might list a GPU from that era even if
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the game might run so slowly at anything other than absolutely minimum on that
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card that it looks more like a pixelated slideshow than an actual game
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so in these sorts of situations minimum requirements are true minimums
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with the game not being playable at any settings if your hardware isn't up to
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that level on the flip side other game developers
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have been known to post minimum requirements above what you may be able
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to get away with this can happen for a number of reasons oculus famously set a
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very high minimum spec for the rift on its release to ensure that anyone who
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followed their guidelines would have a smooth experience across the platform
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and in other cases game studios have made assumptions about what they think
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most players will be using instead of spending a ton of r d time validating
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very old stuff and they've effectively used the minimum spec as a way of saying
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well anything under this might work and you're welcome to try but we just won't
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guarantee that the experience will run well
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adding even further to the confusion are the recommended specifications a term
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about as devoid of meaning as a janitorial log in a gas station bathroom
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since there isn't any kind of standard for what recommended means you'll
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sometimes see configurations that might still not be good enough to run the game
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on high settings with decent frame rates while others will list components that
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are obviously overkill like eight thread
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processors for games that can't take advantage of more than four so okay then
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Linus if i want to make sure my computer can actually handle my new game
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what the heck am i supposed to do then well figure out what kind of experience
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you want are you okay with running a game at console like 30 FPS or is
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buttery smooth 60 frames per second performance something that you have to
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have and what kind of trade-offs are you
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okay with making between that performance and image quality
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once you've decided the answer is benchmarks there are plenty of resources
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available online where popular games are tested on different CPU graphics card
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and quality setting combinations at different price points by independent
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reviewers you can use this information to decide if it's worth it to upgrade
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and how expensive of a part you might need and you actually might end up
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pleasantly surprised to find out how good of an experience you can have with
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a mainstream processor and a sub 200
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graphics card these days but even if it looks like you would need to spend a
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thousand dollars that you just don't have on a brand new system to get the
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experience you would have wanted at least i can say this don't fret too
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much because then you can also save yourself the seventy dollars that you
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