Working out whether your computer can run it

2.1 What a requirements list is telling you

Vendors usually publish two lists. The minimum list describes the weakest computer the game has been built to start on at all. The recommended list describes the computer the vendor expects will give a comfortable result. Neither is a promise about your particular machine, because your machine also has other software on it, a particular screen, and a particular amount of free space.

The useful way to read them is as a floor and a target. Below the minimum, expect disappointment or failure. Between minimum and recommended, expect it to work with the picture quality turned down. At or above recommended, expect the vendor's intended result. No list can tell you more than that, and a vendor who claimed otherwise would be overstating what they can know.

A requirements list also tells you something that is easy to skim past: which operating systems are supported. This is not a performance question but a yes-or-no one, and it is the first line to read. The programme behind this course's worked example states support for Windows and Mac desktop computers only; a Linux computer is outside it. If your computer runs an operating system that is not on the list, no amount of hardware fixes that.

2.2 The five numbers to write down

Take a sheet of paper and leave five lines on it. You are looking for:

• Operating system and version — for example "Windows 11, 64-bit" or "macOS 14". Requirements lists are written against versions, not just names.
• Processor — the CPU. A manufacturer's name and a model number, such as a family name followed by digits.
• Installed memory — RAM, measured in gigabytes. Commonly 8, 16 or 32 on a machine bought in the last several years.
• Graphics — either a separate graphics card with its own name and model number, or graphics built into the processor, which the system will usually describe with the processor's brand in the name.
• Free storage space — not the size of the drive, but the space left on it, in gigabytes.

That is the whole list. You do not need to understand what the numbers mean; you need to be able to read them off and put them beside the vendor's. Understanding comes later, or never, and the comparison works either way.

2.3 Finding them on Windows

1. Open the Start menu and type System information, then open the result with that name. The window that opens is part of Windows itself.
2. On the first page, read OS Name and Version for your first number, Processor for your second, and Installed Physical Memory for your third.
3. In the left-hand tree, open Components, then Display. The Name line there is your graphics entry.
4. Close that window, open File Explorer, and select This PC. The bar under each drive shows free space; the drive marked with the Windows logo is the one that matters.
5. Write all five on your sheet of paper, including the version numbers, not just the names.

If the Start menu search does not find it, holding the Windows key and pressing R opens a small box into which msinfo32 can be typed; it opens the same window. Nothing in this procedure changes any setting — every screen is read-only.

2.4 Finding them on a Mac

1. Open the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen and choose About This Mac.
2. The panel that appears names the macOS version, the chip or processor, and the memory. That is three of your five numbers in one place.
3. On Macs with an Apple chip, graphics are part of the chip, so the chip name is also your graphics entry. On older Intel Macs, open More Info and then System Report, and read the Graphics/Displays section.
4. For free storage, open the Apple menu, then System Settings, then General, then Storage. The figure you want is the space available, not the capacity.
5. Write all five on your sheet of paper.

Menu wording shifts between macOS versions, so treat the names above as a description rather than a script; the information is always within one or two steps of the Apple menu.

2.5 Comparing your numbers with the list

Put your sheet beside the vendor's published requirements and go line by line. Operating system first: if it is not supported, stop there. Then memory and storage, which are plain numbers and need no interpretation — yours is either the same or larger, or it is not.

Processor and graphics are the awkward ones, because the names are not ordered in any way a beginner can see. Two honest approaches work. The first is to accept the comparison as approximate: if your machine is newer than the model named in the minimum list, you are probably at or above it. The second is to look up both model names on their manufacturers' own product pages, which state the year of release — and a part released several years after the one in the minimum list is a reasonable sign that you are above the floor.

Neither approach is exact, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than offering a false certainty. If you finish the comparison and genuinely cannot tell, the practical answer is that you are near the boundary, and near the boundary means the game may work with its picture settings reduced. That is a reasonable thing to find out by trying, as long as Step 4's advice about where you get the file is followed.

2.6 Storage and the internet connection

Two numbers are not usually on the vendor's list but decide the experience anyway.

The first is headroom. A drive that is nearly full slows down and gives the game nowhere to put its updates. Leaving noticeably more free space than the install size is the ordinary advice, and it also saves you from discovering mid-download that there is no room.

The second is your connection. A first download of tens of gigabytes is a real quantity of data, and updates add to it over the following months. If your home internet has a monthly data allowance, or if you are using a mobile connection, that quantity is worth checking against the allowance before you start rather than after. There is nothing unusual or alarming about it — it is simply the size of modern games, and it is the reason the download is a planned event rather than an impulse.

2.7 Computers you should not install on

Some computers pass every line of the requirements list and are still the wrong machine.

A laptop supplied by an employer, a university or a school is usually managed by that organisation, and installing software on it may be blocked outright, or permitted technically but against the acceptable use policy you agreed to. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general guidance for organisations and individuals at cyber.gov.au, but the decisive document in this case is your own workplace's policy, and the courteous thing is to read it rather than to find out by being asked about it.

A shared family computer raises a different question: an account created on it is reachable by anyone who uses that computer while you are signed in. Step 5 covers what to do about that. A computer used for work from home sits in both categories at once.

2.8 The household in the example

2.9 Before you move on

You should now have a sheet of paper with five numbers on it, and a one-line verdict: above the recommended list, between the two lists, below the minimum, or unsupported operating system. That verdict is reusable — it applies to the next game you look at as well, and the numbers only need refreshing when the computer changes.

Step 3 moves off the hardware entirely and onto the documents: the four things worth finding on a vendor's site before an account exists.

2.10 Step 2 checklist

Do this one at the computer you intend to use, not a different one.