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How are System Requirements Determined?

Posted by Cliff on from the picking-numbers-out-of-thin-air dept.

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?"

3 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. determining sys requirements by oprahwinfree · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  2. Why requirements are what they are... by torinth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:simple by Babbster · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I could see this but for the fact that minimum system requirements tend to list pretty low values. For example, how much money are hardware manufacturers going to make if a bunch of people decide to upgrade to a 1.2-GHz machine and/or a GeForce4MX (those being examples of "minimum" computer specs common on current games)? That's rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway: Not much at all.

    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.