General Discussion

As someone with a somewhat dated computer, I find myself actually needing to check system requirements on games coming out. When I look however and see that it requires an Intel Pentium X or Core Two Duo and I'm sitting here with a single core AMD processor wondering how these compare. This is followed by some NVIDIA XXXX GT or something which again leaves me wondering how my NVIDIA (XXXX - 1000) GT SLI setup compares. Of course I could check on these things by surfing around the web for benchmark sites to compare the two but this not only seems like something game companies shouldn't require of users but also probably won't give that accurate of a performance indicator. This is especially the case when people OC their machines or do other unassumed things to booast performance.

So, what I am wondering is why developers don't give more generic benchmarks that take into account a computers performance as a whole. More specifically say something like :

Minimum: 3dMark 05 score: 10000

Recomended: 3dMark 05 score: 12000

or some other more concrete way of saying yes or no whether my system can handle it without requiring me to be hardware proficient.

While I would suggest a bare minimum that is supposed being listed, I do agree.

There needs to be a OFFICIAL "Grading" system for pc components and overall PC's.  The designers of different pieces, know how it performs in comparison to other pieces. It would be easy for them to make a list. 

Why don't they?

Because they know that to the general populace, they don't know the difference between a 8600 GTS and a 8800 GTS, beyond just the numbers on the box, especially considering how close the cards are(in terms of series).  They have vastly different performances.

Heck even a minimum would work with this system.  Such as a 8800 GTS being a say 300 grade, and the minimum grade for it would be 310 so your card couldn't run it.

Minimum requirements are usually the bare bare minimum you need to run games at the lowest settings.

Recommanded however varies, usually recommanded can allow for the game to run pretty smoohtly on average settings.

Getting the maximun performance is basically usually for people that like their game to run very well even at high settings.  This can easily get very expensive as the top end hardware and system that can pull this off is usually much more expensive than the average player can afford.

For most players, having at least recommanded requirements will be fine in terms of running a game.  Plus a system can always be tweaked here and there to produce better efficiency.

But, yeah, the system requirement is quite ambiguous these days, but it isn't too bad to people with some basic knowledge about hardware and software.

The dual and quad core processors are somewhat of a joke when it comes to games.  Most games only take advantage of the primary processor.   So more importantly, the cpu is not the deciding factor with games, it is the graphics card, amount of memory and speed of the hard disk(s) that determine whether you can run a game.

So your notion of using a 3D Mark score would be not much more useful than the current specs.

Originally posted by Bladin

While I would suggest a bare minimum that is supposed being listed, I do agree.

There needs to be a OFFICIAL "Grading" system for pc components and overall PC's.  The designers of different pieces, know how it performs in comparison to other pieces. It would be easy for them to make a list. 

Why don't they?

Because they know that to the general populace, they don't know the difference between a 8600 GTS and a 8800 GTS, beyond just the numbers on the box, especially considering how close the cards are(in terms of series).  They have vastly different performances.

Heck even a minimum would work with this system.  Such as a 8800 GTS being a say 300 grade, and the minimum grade for it would be 310 so your card couldn't run it.

There is. It's the experience score in vista but no one wants to adopt it as a standard. The truth is minor variations in  components can make a computer that should be able to run a game easily CTD.  What can I say standards aren't.....

No offence but it seems a bit extreme to ask an entire industry to implement a best practice because you're not too sure how dual and single cores compare....

If you're finding it that stressful why not just buy a dual core upgrade? :P

I would suggest familiarizing yourself with the products you have vs the products listed on the reqs. For example nvidia xxxx the 1st number is kind of the generation, and the 2nd number is sort of the performance scale (im not %100 sure of this). so a geforce 6900 might be better then a 8400. then theres the 260 / 280 which are high end like 8800 / 9800

Your can also newegg the chip and see what it sells for, that might give a roundabout way of seein how good it is.

Or you can just keep your system at high specs, get a rig you can play crysis on and you'd be set for a while =)

My rig:
Antec 900 w/ Antec TruePower Trio 650W
Asus P5QL-E P43 ICH10R / Asus V72 Cooler
Intel Core2Duo E8500 3.16Ghz
2x G.Skill 2GB PC2 8500 (DDR2 1066) interleaved
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS < next in line for upgrade to GX280+
Creative X-FI Extreme PCI-E
ICH10R/ Western Digital Caviar 150GB SATA-II (OS/VM)
ICH10R/ Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA-II (Games)
ICH10R/ Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA-II x2 RAID1 (Data)
JMB36X/ LiteOn DVD-ROM
JMB36X/ LiteOn DVDRW DL
Win XP SP3 32bit