Playing with realistic specifications!

While browsing through the video games at my local video game store, I noticed a video game that looked good. I flipped it over to read the specifications to see if my PC could play it. The minimum requirements read that I was capable to play it, which gave me that bubbly feeling inside. I got home installed it and noticed that it was jerking through the intro, once finnished I then went into the options and lowered all the settings to a perfectly smooth environment. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, it was still jerking on 'low' settings. It wasn't until I visited GameSpot that I relised how taxing it is on my hardware and the specification were unrealistic.

I then decided to see if I could come up with a way that I could calculate to see if my PC can play the game, using some kind of maths.

I then did a little bit of research and using GameSpots website I compared the minimum specifications with the recommended specifications and came up with this:

Name: Call Of Duty 2
Processor: 1.4 GHz <-> 3.2 GHz
Memory: 256 MB <-> 1024 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB <-> 256 MB

Name: F.E.A.R.
Processor: 1.7 GHz <-> 3.0 GHz
Memory: 512 MB <-> 1024 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB <-> 256 MB

Name: Boiling Point - Road To Hell
Processor: 2.0 GHz <-> 2.0 GHz
Memory: 512 MB <-> 1024 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB <-> 256 MB

Name: Far Cry
Processor: 1.0 GHz <-> 3.0 GHz
Memory: 256 MB <-> 512 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB <-> 128 MB

Name: Civilisation 4
Processor: 1.2 GHz <-> 1.8 GHz
Memory: 256 MB <-> 512 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB <-> 128 MB

If you look through the specifications you'll notice the insane minimum specifications and the more realistic recommendations specs. Now when out browsing for a video game please be sure to double the minimum specs for a more realistic looking values. If you're looking at buying games in the future please use these comparisons to work out what is realistic specs.

From this I conclude that you'll need at least a processor that's 2.0+ GHz, at least 1024 MB of memory, and 256 MB of video memory. To claim that you can run these games using 64 MB of video memory is insane.

CPU means much less than you'd think. I didn't notice for a couple of months that my CPU had somehow been reset to the motherboard default settings, meaning it was running at only around 1.05 GHz. Meanwhile, I'd been running FEAR, GTA SA, Far Cry, etc at fairly high settings without a hitch, and noticed pretty much no difference when I fixed the CPU to run at its intended 2.1 GHz. I also have 'only' 128 MB of video memory...

I say if you have a reasonable graphics card (such as this now fairly old Radeon 9800) you're fine with most games for quite a while longer.

I would actually design a computer more around the generous specifications as apposed to the minimum specifications. I like playing video games as intended by the developers, so I can share the feeling of the game. The lighting effects, the high detail, the shadow effects. All done lag free, jerk free and no signs of freezing up or crashing do the lack of memory. But I do understand that you don't need a high CPU speed, but you do need a decent graphics card and at least 512-1024 MBs of memory to play games comfortably.

yeah, XP crawls in games if you only have 256mb of system ram. 512 is ok and I think 1024mb is the sweet spot with the current generation.

32mb is pretty limiting for making games, particularly without texture compression. I'd like to think that everyone had 64mb by now, but that doesn't seem to be the case if your targeting casual gamers.

Having a faster harddrive helps with the jerking, especially when it's defragged, my PC in it's current state takes forever to boot up and jerks quite a bit ingames till the resources are all loaded because it's such a mess right now.
(too lazy to wait for an 80gb HD to defrag here)

Realistic:

nvidia 7800GT (pcie)
amd 3800 x2
1 gig low latency ram
asus 939 motherboard
seagate barracuda sata2

That won't be all -that- expensive, in fact you can get it cheap, but it will run just about any game on the planet at liquid-smooth framerates.

Get a new tower to go with it and a quiet 400 psu

You don't need sound, lan or anything else, the mobo is good for that. The sound quality is on par with soundblaster live, so I don't see the problem there. Can always upgrade later.

Well I think I should point out that the COD2 specs it lists as a minimum are for running the game in DirectX 7 mode, which while it loses all the normal and specular mapping becomes very playable on those specs and the enjoyment can still be had. But of course it doesn't look as good as when you have all those fancy eyecandy features turned on ;)

I think it's safe to say that PC games are going to be making much more use of normal mapping,pixel shaders,HDR and all those other fancy graphic's buzzwords now that consoles like the Xbox360 and soon PS3 will be using them in games.

I didn't think COD 2 graphics were all that impressive myself, but still. And it doesn't require that high end a PC to run at high res. right now I'm having trouble finding anything that taxes my 6600GT much, let alone a 7series card

128 meg cards are usually fine.

I'm interested in selling my 3ghz athlon 64 + mobo + graphics card for the right price - shipped by parcelforce in the uk.

What is the full title of your GeForce 6600 GT? Is it a Gigabyte, XFX or Sparkle?

mines a cheapo 128mb evga 6600GT I got for $130

When I got it the AGP was set to 64mb in bios and the FPS wasn't that great, turning it up to 128 or 256 doubled the FPS in just about every game I tried it on.

Mention the last for anyone that hadn't discovered the little tip for themselves.

I've heard only good things about the GeForce 6600 GT and thinking about buying the 258 MB version, AGP 8x. Just wondering how it would handle at 1024 x 876 under Doom 3 conditions. Don't happen to have MSN Messenger I could contact you on? :\

1024x768 doom3 on medium is really smooth on an inferior 9800PRO card. The 6600GT will handle it with absolute ease at that resolution.

Ok, the highest my moniter will go is to 1024 x 786, so I've decided now to go get the GeForce 6600 GT and I'm going to run all games at that resolution with 256MB of VRAM. Should be fun. Just started reading Custom PC magazine, well worth £4.99

How do you run the bios again? I should try cranking my 9600XT AGP card up if I can. My PCI-E 7800 GT stomps all over my Athlon 64 Machine.

You run BIOS by hitting the proper acces key during boot.

F8 and Delete are two that have worked on PC's of mine.

I just borrowed the neighbours quake 4 to try since I don't have an ID game. In the first level at high detail everything on but AA and 4xAF

Quake 4 runs at 35 - 70 FPS with my 6600GT 1280x1024 32bit

My system is a A64 3200+ with 1GB of 400mhz ram at 333mhz because my a64 doesn't like my ram too much :(

[qupte]right now I'm having trouble finding anything that taxes my 6600GT much[/quote]

Black & White2 is having quite the grand time not running too good on my 256mb GF6800 GT, gotta turn off AA for it to run around 15-30 FPS @ 1240x768.
(AMD64 3200+ CPU w/ 1gb 2700DDR Ram)