what does recommendend ram requirements for pc games really mean?

Question

I mean when they have those recommeded ram ammounts posted, do they consider the fact that the operating system takes up a lot of ram or do they want that whole ammount of ram physically free? Like if a game has a 1 gig requirement, do they mean 1 gig with the inclusion of the O/S resources or 1 gig free to be used by itself?
Thanx

Answer 1

Since it is pretty much impossible to run a game without having the Operating System running as well, they do factor that in when they list recommended requirements. Also, be sure to take note whether they say minimum requirements and recommended requirements. Minimum is the absolute minimum to get the game to run at all, quality not a concern. Recommended is how much you need to actually get some decent performance.

Answer 2

The "recommended" requirement for PC games is most often a representation of the higher-end computers that the original software development team for the game used in programming, graphic designing, and testing the game. A developement team might consist of 10 - 100 people in creating a game, but if they have already established a good reputation from game publishing companies, they may be given a larger budget to work with. While not complaining about this, many of the programmers and game graphic designers may end up getting and using really high-end equipment (examples are a Dell XPS710H-2-C, Apple MacPro, Alienware, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, or VoodooPC system all maxed-out). In the late stages of developing the game, the development team will go through a beta-testing phase to see which computer configurations will work with their game and what will not work. If the game is along the lines of Final Fantasy, StarWars Knights Of The Old Republic, Command&Conquer 3, Halo, GuildWars, or the EA Sports games, it will require an advanced ATI or nVidia discreet graphics system to be installed on computers in order to render the 3D meshes, animations, and textures seen on screen. As most consumers do not possess Dell XPS710 or Apple MacPro systems, the development team must sometimes "dumb down" elements of the game using animation and audio compression techniques and eliminating on-screen elements not relevent to the game's gameplay and storytelling elements. This is so that lower-ended systems still equipped with a good graphics card may still play the game smoothly. The "recommended requirements" are usually a representation of a system a few steps above what will run the game without a hitch. This is to ensure that the user playing the game on a "recommended requirements" system will be able to experience everthing the developers wanted you to in the game. "Minimum requirements" is a representation of what in testing the game would run on just short of having serious compatibility issues and stability issues. If the game's "recommended requirements" says on the box: video card-ATI Radeon X1300Pro 256MB or equivalent, CPU-Intel 2GHz Core2Duo or AMD 1.8GHz Athlon64x2 processor, RAM-1GB, OpticalDrive- 8x DVD-ROM or faster, Hard Drive space-10GB, and your system is at or above these specs, then you should run the game with most or all effects and options turned on. The only way you would experience a hitch in performance is if you have beyond anti-virus a whole bunch of other apps running like Word, Safari/IE/Firefox, Windows Media Player, etc. at the same time you are playing the game.

Answer 3

Actually, the "recommended" amount is usually the amount of RAM that the testers had on their computer when they were testing their game. They use multiple computers to test it obviously, and they sort of try to gauge an average or what they think is the amount you need to run it well.

This is not always accurate, game performance depends on your CPU, your GPU, your RAM, your harddrive and all the other components of your computer--even heat, a hotter computer will not run as well as the same computer if it were coooler.

So again, it's good to get that much RAM and the more the better but you can get by with less or you could have much more and still not get good performance.

As a rule of thumb, if you meet all the recommended criteria, you should be fine. If not, you can take up with the company (who made the game) and complain and they should either help you fix the problem or get a refund.

When they say 1Gb of RAM, they mean total. but as you said, it depends what else you are running right? Again, it all depends on what is going on in your computer and the other components.

Answer 4

The minimum requirement generally takes into account the OS and the fact that you are probably going to have other programs running at the same time. However, it's always better to have more than the minimum =)

Answer 5

They mean The physical amount of RAM is recommended to run it. less than the listed amount would not be optimal for display and processing.

Answer 6

it means that those are the requirements to make the game run smoothly (e.g, have a good frame rate per second) your sytem can be a little below the requirements but it may still work perfectly fine.