Step 2 — Will your computer run it?

Step 2 of 5 · Berth 12-4

The five numbers that decide it

A vendor's published system requirements are a short list, and your own computer can answer every item on it in about four minutes. You do not need to understand what the parts do. You need to be able to read five values off a screen and write them next to five values from a web page.

Here are the five, in the order they usually appear.

One word about the two columns vendors publish. "Minimum" means the game is expected to start and be playable. "Recommended" means the vendor expects it to look and feel as intended. Meeting the minimum and not the recommended figure is a legitimate position to be in; it usually means turning picture quality down, which the game lets you do.

Finding them on Windows

Everything below uses screens Windows already has. Nothing needs installing, and you should be suspicious of any site that offers to tell you your specifications by running something.

1. Press the Windows key, type About your PC, and open the result. This screen gives you the Windows edition and version, the processor name and the installed memory in gigabytes.
2. Write down the processor exactly as shown, including the model number after the dash. The family name alone is not enough to compare against a requirements list.
3. For graphics, press the Windows key, type dxdiag, open it, and choose the Display tab. The "Name" field is your graphics hardware. If it begins with "Intel UHD", "Intel Iris" or "AMD Radeon Graphics" with no model number, it is almost certainly built into the processor rather than a separate card.
4. For disk space, open File Explorer, select This PC, and read the free space under your main drive, normally C:.
5. Write all five on the same piece of paper. You will use them again in Step 4.

Finding them on a Mac

1. Open the Apple menu in the top-left corner and choose About This Mac. This gives you the macOS version, the chip or processor name, and the memory.
2. On Macs with an Apple chip — anything named M1, M2, M3 or later — the graphics are part of that chip, so the chip name answers both the processor and the graphics line.
3. On older Intel Macs, open More Info, then System Report, and look under Graphics/Displays for the card name.
4. For disk space, open the Apple menu, then System Settings, then General, then Storage.

Two Mac-specific cautions that catch new players out. A game published for Windows is not automatically published for macOS, even by the same vendor, and a Mac version can lag the Windows one by a version or two. And a Mac game listed as requiring an Apple chip will not run on an Intel Mac, however powerful that Mac was when new.

If your computer runs Linux

Most large desktop games are not published for Linux, and that includes the product named in this course: the material we were given states plainly that there is no Linux version, and that the game is for desktop Windows and Mac computers.

If Linux is the only computer you have, the honest answer is that this particular example is closed to you, and we are not going to suggest workarounds, compatibility layers or unofficial builds — they are outside what the vendor publishes and outside what we can responsibly describe. Steps 1, 3 and 5 still apply in full to whatever you do play, and Step 4 applies to the general practice of installing from a vendor's own source.

Reading a vendor's published requirements

Requirements live on the vendor's own site, usually on a page linked from the download or support area rather than from the front page. Find that page and keep it open beside your five numbers.

Then compare line by line, and treat each line as a pass or a fail rather than an impression.

• Operating system. Exact match or newer. This line has no partial credit.
• Processor. If yours is newer than the one listed from the same maker and the same tier, it is reasonable to treat it as a pass. If yours is older, treat it as a fail even if the number is bigger — processor numbering is not a straight ranking across generations.
• Memory. A simple number comparison, and the one line where you can be confident.
• Graphics. The hardest line to judge. If the requirement names a separate card and you have graphics built into the processor, assume a fail unless the vendor explicitly lists integrated graphics as supported.
• Disk space. Take the published figure and add half again, because patches accumulate.

The sixth number: your connection

Requirements lists rarely mention your internet connection, and for a lot of Australian households it is the line that actually matters.

Two quantities are worth knowing. The first is your monthly data allowance, if you have one. A large game is a sizeable download, and it patches repeatedly afterwards; on a plan with a cap, or on a mobile or satellite service, the first month can account for a real share of the allowance. Look up your plan before you start, not after.

The second is whether the connection is steady. Online games need a continuous connection while you play, and a line that drops for twenty seconds is more disruptive than a line that is simply slow. If your connection drops often, that is worth knowing before you judge a game by how it feels.

Neither of these is something we can measure for you, and nothing on this page tries to. Your retail service provider publishes your plan's allowance, and your own experience of video calls is a better guide to steadiness than any test.

The worked example: the hallway desktop

The hypothetical household from Step 1 sits down with the six-year-old desktop. This is an illustration of the method, not a report about a real machine or a real product.

They find Windows 11, an Intel Core i5 from a generation they have to look up, 8 GB of memory, graphics built into the processor rather than a separate card, and 94 GB free on the C: drive. They write all five down. The connection is a fixed line with no monthly cap, which they confirm by looking at their own plan rather than guessing.

Against a typical requirements page, their reading is: operating system passes, memory passes at the minimum but not the recommended figure, disk space passes with room, processor is a question mark they resolve by checking its release year, and graphics is their weak line because it is integrated. Their conclusion is not "yes" or "no" but something more useful: if they install anything, they should expect to run it at low picture quality, and they should decide now whether that is acceptable rather than being disappointed later.