Chapter Two.

Working out whether your computer is the right one

Step 2 of 5

What a system requirement is, and what it is not

Every game published for desktop computers comes with a list of system requirements: the hardware and software the publisher says are needed to run it. The list is usually given twice, once as "minimum" and once as "recommended", and the difference between the two is where most of the confusion in this step lives.

Minimum means the game is expected to start and be playable on a machine like that, at low settings, at a low resolution, possibly with the picture updating fewer times per second than feels smooth. It is a floor, not a promise of a pleasant evening.

Recommended means the publisher expects a machine like that to run the game comfortably at ordinary settings. It is still an estimate, not a guarantee, and it says nothing about how the game behaves on your particular combination of parts.

Two things a requirements list is not. It is not a legal commitment: if the game runs badly on a machine that matches the list, that is a matter for the vendor's support and, in Australia, potentially for the consumer guarantees described by the ACCC, but it is not something the list itself settles. And it is not static — requirements creep upward over the life of a live-service game as content is added. A list you read today may describe a smaller game than the one that exists in two years.

For the title this course is funded by, the only hardware statement available from the vendor and the network is the one already quoted: it is promoted for desktop computers running Windows, macOS or Linux. Specific processor, memory and graphics figures are not stated to us, so this course does not invent them. You will find them, if the vendor publishes them, on the vendor's own site — which is exactly the skill this step is teaching.

The five things worth writing down

You do not need to understand computer hardware to do this step. You need five facts about the machine in front of you, written on paper, so that you can compare them with a published list without re-checking anything.

• Operating system and version. Not just "Windows" but "Windows 11, 24H2", or "macOS 15.3", or "Ubuntu 24.04". Vendors routinely require a minimum version, and an older one is the most common reason a game refuses to install at all.
• Processor. The make and model string, copied exactly, including the number after it. On a Mac this may read as an Apple chip name rather than an Intel or AMD one.
• Installed memory, in gigabytes. Often listed as RAM. This is working memory, not storage, and the two are frequently confused.
• Graphics. The name of the graphics chip. If it says "integrated", "UHD Graphics", "Iris", "Radeon Graphics" without a model number, or "Apple M-series GPU", the graphics are built into the processor rather than being a separate card. That is not a problem for this genre as a rule, but it is a fact the requirements list will care about.
• Free space on the drive you would install to, in gigabytes. Write today's figure, not what the drive held when it was new.

Finding them on your own machine

Three short procedures, one per operating system. None of them installs anything, changes anything or requires an administrator password.

Windows 10 or 11

1. Press the Windows key, type About your PC, and open the result. This panel gives you the processor, the installed memory and, lower down, the Windows edition and version.
2. Press the Windows key again, type Display settings, scroll to the bottom and choose Advanced display. The adapter name shown there is your graphics chip.
3. Open File Explorer, choose This PC, and read the free space figure under the drive you would install to — usually C:.
4. Write all five facts down before closing the windows.

macOS

1. Open the Apple menu in the top-left corner and choose About This Mac. The chip or processor name, the memory and the macOS version are all on this one panel.
2. On Apple-silicon Macs the graphics are part of the chip, so the chip name is the answer to both questions. On older Intel Macs, choose More Info and then System Report, and look under Graphics/Displays.
3. Open the Apple menu, then System Settings, then General, then Storage, and read the available figure.
4. Write all five facts down before closing the windows.

Linux

1. Open your desktop environment's Settings and find the About or Details panel. On GNOME and on KDE this shows the distribution and version, the processor, the memory and the graphics device in one place.
2. If your desktop does not provide such a panel, the same information is available from the system information tools your distribution ships; consult your distribution's own documentation rather than running commands copied from a stranger.
3. Open the file manager or the disk utility and read free space on the partition holding your home directory.
4. Write all five facts down before closing the windows.

Note for Linux specifically: a game published for Windows may run on Linux through a compatibility layer rather than natively, and a vendor that lists Linux support may mean either thing. Whether a particular title supports Linux natively is a question for that vendor's own requirements page.

Comparing your numbers with the vendor's

With your five facts written down, open the vendor's requirements page and fill in a table like this one. The point of writing it out is that it forces you to notice the blank rows — the ones the vendor has not published — rather than assuming they are fine.

Read the result with one rule: the operating system row is a pass-or-fail row, and the other four are matters of degree. If your Windows or macOS version is below the stated minimum, the game may simply refuse to run, and no amount of spare memory compensates. If your memory or graphics fall between minimum and recommended, expect it to work and to look plainer than the advertising.

What to do if you fall short

Falling short of a requirement is not a crisis and is not a reason to buy anything. In order of sense:

1. Update the operating system if it is behind and the machine supports a newer version. This is free, and it is good practice for security reasons as well. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general guidance on keeping personal devices updated.
2. Free up disk space before anything else, because it is the cheapest of the five to fix and the most common shortfall on an older laptop.
3. Accept lower settings. Most games in this genre include quality settings, and turning them down costs nothing but appearance.
4. Decide not to play it on this machine. A perfectly respectable conclusion to reach at the end of Step 2, and one the rest of this course fully supports.

What not to do: install a third-party "optimiser", "booster" or "driver updater" to make the machine eligible. Software of that sort is unnecessary for this purpose, is a recurring theme in consumer complaints, and Step 4 explains why installers from anywhere other than the vendor or your operating system's own update mechanism deserve suspicion.

Laptops, heat and the power cable

Most readers of this course will be using a laptop, and laptops behave differently from desktop towers in two ways worth knowing. They reduce their own performance when they get hot, which a long gaming session reliably achieves, and many reduce it further when running on battery to extend the charge. A game that stutters after twenty minutes but not in the first five is usually showing you one of those two effects rather than a fault.

The practical responses are unglamorous: play with the power cable connected, put the machine on a hard surface rather than a doona so the vents are not blocked, and check your power settings are not on a battery-saving mode. None of this requires a purchase.

Download size and your connection

Games in this genre are often several gigabytes at install and continue to download updates afterwards. If your household is on a connection with a monthly data allowance, or on a mobile broadband plan, the install is worth doing deliberately rather than by accident, and worth doing at a time that will not interfere with anyone else's evening. If you share the connection, say so before you start the download rather than afterwards.

The link in this sentence is a paid affiliate link and may earn Hidden Assets s.r.o. a commission if you register, install and launch the tutorial; you pay nothing extra. If you want to put the comparison table to work on the title this site is funded by, visit the Raid: Shadow Legends website and copy whatever requirements the vendor publishes into the middle two columns.

The example household, at the end of Step 2

The hypothetical Adelaide household writes out their five facts: a six-year-old laptop, Windows 11 after an update they had been postponing, an Intel processor with integrated graphics, eight gigabytes of memory, and a little under thirty gigabytes free once they had emptied a folder of old photographs onto an external drive. Two of the vendor's rows they wanted to fill in were not published anywhere they could find, so those cells stayed blank and were marked "not stated" rather than guessed at. They have still installed nothing.

Before you move on

You should now have a piece of paper with five facts about your own machine, and a half-filled comparison table with any unpublished rows honestly marked as unknown. You should know that the operating system row decides whether the thing runs at all, and that the remaining rows decide how it looks and feels. And you should have resisted buying anything, because nothing in this step required it.

Step 3 moves away from the machine and towards the money: what the Australian Classification Board publishes about a game, what in-game purchases are, and what it means when a reward is randomised.