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How are System Requirements Determined?
May Kasahara asks: "Seeing as how my Unreal Tournament buddies are considering upgrading to UT2004 soon, I thought I'd check out the system requirements ahead of time. I thought that I'd have no problems, seeing as how UT2004 is mostly just UT2003 with new content, but upon looking up the specs online, I found quite a different story. My PC runs on a 733mHz Pentium III, just meeting the minimum system req.'s for UT2003 (which runs very smoothly on my machine, BTW), but UT2004 requires at least a 1gHz processor for the PC version. Curious, I checked out the UT2003 system specs listed on the official site, and found much the same info-- specs that were quite different from those listed on the retail box in my storage closet.
Naturally, I got to thinking about other games and apps, and what I want to know is: what gives? How accurate/trustworthy are system specs listed on a box? Are they artificially inflated to sell more hardware from companies that these publishers are affiliated with (nVidia in UT's case), or is there a more logical explanation?"
They make an application, then try loading it on progessively lower spec'd machines. When they finally get to a machine that it doesn't work on they back up to the last one and call that the requirements.
Companies usually take into account two things when setting requirements.
The first is the actual requirements. These stem from the specific things that are required by libraries and compiled code. These are things like the class of processor, the operating system, or the DirectX generation supported by the graphics drivers.
The other thing accounted for is the presumed requirements. This sets the lower threshold of performance for which the company needs to account. Few things depend on a specific processor speed, but when a company says X requires a 1GHz Pentium, they are disclaiming liability for when someone runs it with a 766MHz chip.
You may be surprised how much software you can technically get to function on a 486 100Mhz running Window95. You won't be surprised by how incredibly poorly it performs. The company is just trying to avoid having to deal with your complaints when you try it.
Basically the minimum specs should be read as this. If you absolutly have to play the game and can not afford to upgrade then yes you can at least with luck play it at more then 1 frame per second when the moon is full.
The recommended spec mean that if you pc meets it then you can turn some of the options on and it won't be a slideshow. When the moon is full.
Only if you exceed the recommended spec by a mile do you have any chance of playing the game anywhere near the quality shown in the screen shots and the gameplay videos.
As for bitching about it. Well buy a console. They are supposed to all have the same spec so the game will either run or not run. You know the reviewer is playing it on the same machine as you.
PC means constantly having to upgrade to the latest hardware to play the latest games. Or does it? If you still can stand counter stike then your P3 should be perfect. Or do you really need a higher framerate then refreshrate?
So the answer the question, minimum specs are like the fuel milage in car ads, the prices in holiday ads, playboy women. A work of fiction.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It could be higher polygon count models are used in the new version.
Urban Terror (the other UT) has higher requirements then Quake3 even though it is the exaxt same engine. They have higher detailed models and texture and possibly modified physics (I don't know enough about the physics though.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
As far as I can figure, minimum specs are a bunch of bollocks, made up by marketers in collusion with hardware manufacturers. This goes for operating systems as well as games. Case in point:
I have two boxen in my house at present: Toshiba Tecra 8000 Laptop (PII 233, 128MB, but now has 256), and a celeron 500 originally with 128MB, now with 256MB.
On the laptop, I've played Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate I and II, Quake I and II. They were slow, but playable.
On the Celeron (with 128 ram and a TNT2 with 32MB), I've played all the above games without trouble, plus Q3A and UT2k3 at reasonable (25+) framerates, Age of Mythology, Max Payne (I), Black and White, Deus Ex, NOLF, RTCW, Hitman and Ghost Recon (which was damn slow, I'll admit) and a bunch of others. I'm pretty sure all these games had minimum specs above what this box could offer.
The thing that gets me is how different linux distros determine their minimum specs. Lindows requiring a PIII-800? Fedora requiring 196MB? Even winXP isn't that bad...
L
The REAL truth is even simpler: Game companies will tend to list the lowest requirements which allow the game to run (in at least a playable, if not pretty, fashion) in a relatively low resolution with many - or most, or all - of the graphical details turned down/off. Why? Because the lower the system requirements listed on the box, the more people who will feel comfortable buying the game. This, of course, also leads to many complaints of frame rate chugging on even higher end systems when all the graphical details are turned on/maxed out. "If the minimum is 700 MHz, then my 1.8 GHz will be friggin' awesome!"
Now, that's not to say that you can't run a game in playable fashion with less powerful systems than the listed minimums. That doesn't mean that the minimums are inflated - instead, it means that the game company is being conservative...and that's a GOOD thing.