By Walter Jobs, Technology writer and editor · Published 9 October 2026
Short answer: minimum means the game will start and be playable at low settings, usually around 30 frames per second at 1080p. Recommended means the experience the developer designed, usually high settings at 1080p and around 60 frames per second. Almost nobody states those assumptions, which is the single reason so many people meet a published spec and still feel short changed.
The missing sentence on every requirements table
Read any requirements block and notice what is absent. There is a processor, a graphics card, a memory figure and a storage figure. There is no resolution, no graphics preset and no target frame rate. Those three omissions turn the whole table into a riddle, because a graphics card is only adequate relative to a resolution and a frame rate, and the publisher has told you neither.
So the industry runs on an unwritten convention instead. It is reliable enough to plan around, and it is worth knowing because the table will never tell you.
| Tier | Unstated assumption | What you are actually promised |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 1080p, low preset, around 30 fps | The game launches and is completable. Not that you will enjoy it |
| Recommended | 1080p, high preset, around 60 fps | The game as the developer intended it to look and feel |
| A third tier, when offered | 1440p or 4K, ultra, 60 fps | Whatever the marketing department wanted to put in a press release |
That middle row is the one that causes the arguments. Someone with a 1440p 144 Hz monitor reads the recommended spec, buys the card named in it, and gets 45 frames per second. They have not been misled by a false claim. They have been misled by an assumption nobody printed.
What the gap between the two tiers tells you
The distance between a game’s minimum and recommended cards is a piece of information most people walk past, and it predicts how the game will behave on hardware in between.
| Gap between the tiers | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Small, one tier apart | The game scales gently. Settings will not buy you much, because there is not much range to give |
| Large, several tiers apart | The settings menu does real work. Hardware between the two will land somewhere sensible |
| Minimum is very old | The engine is forgiving and the floor is genuinely low. Usually a good sign for an older machine |
| Recommended is current flagship | Either a demanding game or a publisher quoting 4K ultra without saying so |
Where each tier is unreliable
Requirements are written by people with an interest in you buying the game, and they are written months before release. Four specific ways they mislead.
They are often written before optimisation finishes. A requirements block published at announcement reflects a build nobody can play yet. Day one patches move performance in both directions, and the table rarely gets updated to match.
Memory figures are the most optimistic line. A game listing 8 GB as its minimum is describing the game alone on a clean machine. Your machine also runs Windows, a browser, a launcher and a chat client. The practical floor is higher than the printed one more often than any other field.
Alternatives listed with “or” are rarely equal. A line reading “GTX 1060 or RX 580” presents two cards the publisher considers interchangeable, and in practice one of them is usually a noticeable step ahead. Treat the pairing as a rough tier rather than an equivalence.
Upscaling is increasingly baked in without being declared. Several recent recommended specs quietly assume DLSS or FSR is switched on. If you intend to play at native resolution, the card named is no longer sufficient and nothing on the page says so.
So which should you aim for?
Recommended, and read it as a floor rather than a target. Here is why the minimum tier is a worse deal than it looks.
Meeting the minimum puts you at low settings and around 30 frames per second on the day the game launches. Games get heavier as they are patched and as expansions arrive, and your hardware does not. A machine that just clears the minimum has no room to absorb any of that. A machine at the recommended tier has a year or two of slack and a settings menu that can still give something back.
The exception is a game you intend to play once, soon, at 1080p, and never return to. Then the minimum tier is exactly what it claims to be and there is nothing wrong with using it.
Checking a specific game against your own machine
Rather than reading a table and guessing where you fall, put your two parts against the published requirements and get a frame rate instead of a tier. Our Can I Run It checker shows the publisher’s own figures alongside an estimate for your processor and graphics card at the resolution you actually play at, which is the number the table left out.
If you meet the recommended tier and the game still runs badly, that is a separate problem with its own causes, and my PC meets the requirements but the game runs badly works through them.
Frequently asked questions
Is it bad to only meet the minimum requirements?
Not bad, but be clear about what you are buying: low settings, 1080p and roughly 30 frames per second, with no slack for patches that make the game heavier. It is a reasonable position for a game you will finish in a fortnight and a poor one for something you intend to play for years.
Why do I meet the recommended specs and still get poor performance?
Most often because the recommended tier assumes 1080p and you are playing at 1440p or 4K, which is a far heavier job for the card. Other common reasons are a single memory stick halving your bandwidth, a game still compiling shaders, or a recommendation that quietly assumed upscaling was on.
What frame rate do recommended requirements assume?
Around 60 at 1080p on high settings, by convention rather than by any stated promise. A few publishers now say explicitly which resolution and frame rate each tier describes, and those tables are far more useful. When nothing is stated, assume 1080p and 60.
Should I trust requirements published before a game launches?
Treat them as provisional. They are written against a build that is still being optimised, and the figures at announcement often differ from how the released game behaves. Wait for the launch day table, and for a game you care about, wait for someone to measure it on hardware like yours.
Do requirements account for the operating system and background apps?
Generally not, and the memory line is where that bites. A stated 8 GB describes the game with little else running. Add Windows, a browser with a dozen tabs and a launcher, and the real floor is meaningfully higher than the printed one.
The conventions described here are what the industry means in practice, not a standard anybody publishes. Where this article refers to frame rates for specific hardware, those come from our own model rather than measurement, and how we calculate this sets out the method.