Some of you have probably seen me respond to threads about this recently and some of you probably think I'm just some angry old guy or troll. But, I'm genuinely curious what peoples thoughts are on this.
I've been a PC gamer for over 20 years now. I've been building my own PC's since my teens. I make my living as a IT Admin now. When I see a program (game or otherwise) list X specs as the Minimum System Requirements, I take that to mean the absolute minimum hardware you can expect that application to run at ALL on. I do NOT take that to mean I will be happy with the applications performance as long as I meet those requirements.
However, I see people all the time running systems at or sometimes even just below the minimum requirements (again, not just referring to games here) angry that the application doesn't run as well as they would like. Personally, I just don't understand the thought process there.
So, I would honestly love to hear what everyone else's opinions on what "minimum requirements" mean. Am I the odd man out in feeling that way about system requirements?
I think minimum is what a developer deems is needed to run the game adiquate. Now most people want options now if the game company is smart they want as many as good as possible, and anywhere in between. Now game designers aren't so good to predict what is coming out down the road. I would like to see options for the latter, so the game gets better with time.
Now whatis generally possible Is to turn down options to run game with less than system requirements. If this happens this should never be for review, because you are running the game differently than what it was designed for.
See, in my mind that first sentence sounds to me like you're talking about "recommended" system requirements. After all, I think we can all agree that the "recommended" system requirements doesn't indicate maximum performance. In my opinion, the last portion is what you should be expecting to do to run the game at all when you're only meeting the minimum requirements.
Minimum means lowest capable of 'running' a proggy or game without crash [CTD].
It will be far less than stellar in quality/effect/frame rate....but it will load and run.
Recommended means that by which the user/player might actually enjoy doing so.
It's not rocket surgery.....
I'm with Jafo here; minimum means the "worst" hardware you can have and still run the game without crashes. This may or may not include things such as severe FPS lag. Though in the absence of recommended specs, sometimes the minimum actually means recommended; this has lead to confusion I believe.
Unfortunately there is a big difference between technically working, and performing adequately.
If you can run a first person shooter, without crashing, but attempting to aim at something means the game hangs for thirty seconds and then your view jumps to a position before hanging for another thirty seconds, it doesn't actually work.
The minimum should be what is required to have the game perform it's basic functionality at base settings, low resolution, none of the bells and whistles, not simply what is required for it to not crash. It's more subjective, but it's relevant to the question of whether or not you can actually use a product, whether it crashes or not is a non-subjective measurement, but doesn't tell you whether you can use it.
Recommended, naturally, is what it takes for the game to look great and run well.
Recommended = benchmark for how soon I start preparing my wife for the next PC purchase
LOL, that's what I thought. But that doesn't seem to be common knowledge these days.
Yes it's non-subjective. It has to be. Define low resolution. Define poor image quality. Define poor framerate. I don't game at less than 1080p. Period. For me, anything below 1080p would be low resolution. Some people have never played a game above 720p. I know people perfectly content to play at 1024x768.
FPS's have a more definable and noticeable "playability" requirement as you demonstrate. But games like TBS's it's far less definable and has far less of an impact. You can't change the standards of "minimum" and "recommended" based on the type of game or application you're running. Therefore they need to be non-subjective.
Steam gets to do lots of refunds for games that have a minimum system requirement listed as purely what the game will load with. Companies that do releases anywhere even close to this tend to not do another. They get tarred and feathered by the customers as they're introduced to their future bankruptcy in the form of 1 star reviews where the most telling complaint isn't about the game itself, but that the rating system doesn't allow for 0 stars.
If your system hangs for five minutes when you move the mouse, whether the cursor eventually moves or not isn't going to matter for a TBS any more than it will a FPS. Both would technically run without crashing, both would be prohibitively unplayable.
Really? Do you have some sort of evidence to back up this statement?
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