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I have a Inspiron 153000 which does not meet all of the minimum requirements for a game that I wish to download. It meets the minimum requirements for the CPU, memory and meets the recommended requirements for OS. The only thing that it does not meet minimum requirements for is the graphics card which has 2GB of dedicated video RAM out of the required 3.072GB.

If I were to download this game would I be able to run it? If so, what would the FPS be like and would it negatively impact my PC?

The game in question is Teardown.

Edit: As I stated in my question I am aware that my PC does not meet the minimum requirements but I just wanted to know whether my PC could run the game and how it would effect my gaming experience.

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  • "Minimum requirements" suggests otherwise, but you can always try it out and answer your question yourself :) It might run but just lag to some degree.
    – Joachim
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 11:50
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    I will VTC, however, since this can be asked for any game and any system, and is of little help to most users. Possible duplicate: How can I check if my computer's powerful enough to run a certain game?
    – Joachim
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 11:51
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    @Joachim I know that my computer does not meet the requirements I was just wondering what the consequences were and how it would effect my gaming experience. Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 12:12
  • For what it's worth I don't think this is a duplicate, but close voted it for a different reason.
    – pppery
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 18:52
  • This still seems like a duplicate to me. It is discussed in duplicate across the answers what the consequences are of trying to run a game below the specs (bad gameplay experience, crashes, etc.) gaming.stackexchange.com/a/375721/163757
    – Timmy Jim
    Commented Mar 28, 2022 at 4:40

1 Answer 1

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It might run, but it also might not.

Gauging minimum requirements is hard. At any time for any reason, an app (games included) may suddenly need more resources than expected. This is even more problematic on PCs, where background applications may or may not take additional resources away from your game.

As a result, most devs simply define minimum requirements and try to ensure that the game will run with those specs. Depending on what computers they have lying around, those minimum requirements may very well be significantly higher than what is actually required. In this case, "minimum requirements" is simply a guarantee that the devs have tested their game on that kind of machine, and that it will definitely run on it, unless they missed something.

But I've also seen the other way around, where games set their minimum requirements too low. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, for example, had a minimum requirement of 1 GB RAM. However, with only 1 GB RAM the game would often crash, and only the prologue would be playable, as the game would consistently crash while loading chapter 1. It wasn't until I had upgraded my RAM that I finally managed to play through the whole game (without any crash, no less).

This is why I generally recommend ignoring the "minimum requirements", and only trust the "recommended requirements" as the only way to know for certain whether a game will run or not.

In particular, RAM requirements are especially important. If your CPU/GPU is x% slower than the minimum required, your game will most likely run x% slower than intended, but that's all there is to it*. However, if you're short even 1 byte of RAM, your performance may suffer significantly, or the game may even crash entirely.

Also, you mentioned playing on a laptop. Generally speaking, a laptop is not as powerful as a desktop, and all requirements are based on desktop computers. Even if your laptop has an RTX 3050, you should not expect it to actually perform like a desktop RTX 3050. This is especially true when playing on battery power, since the battery cannot provide your PC with sufficient power to run at full capacity.

Still, your computer might run the game despite everything, but it also might not.


*: Depending on the game, having a slower CPU/GPU actually might make the game unwinnable. For example, Mass Effect has a level in which you need to reach a certain point within a given time. However, while the timer is based on real time, the player's movement speed is dependent on your FPS. In this game, low FPS means low movement speed. As a result, if your computer is too slow, it may be impossible to finish that level due to running out of time.

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