Hello!

When Doom Eternal came out in March, I remember seeing a review bashing the game because his 2 gig card can't run it. I assumed this was an isolated incident, but then I encountered similar reviews with the same game, as well as with other releases during the year. I was slightly taken aback when I realized how common this issue was.

Before purchasing a game, remember to read the system requirements before buying it. On the GoG store page, you can find the system requirements just above the "You may like these products" section. Alternatively, you can press ctrl+F, and then type "requirements". On the Steam app, you can find the requirements above the "More like this" section. Alternatively, you can also use ctrl+F for the client, too. Googling "system requirements" and the game's name also works. Keep in mind that if the game is still in development, you won't get accurate results until it is officially released. Youtubers frequently post videos that shows performance with certain hardware, so it might help if you search there.

Also keep in mind that having the requirements on paper doesn't mean you can run it well...or even at all. My previous rig had an Intel HD 3000 GPU (1GB of VRAM). The recommended requirements for the game was 1GB (this was original release, not special edition), but because I had an integrated GPU, running the game was a sad, sad sight.

Whether the GPU is integrated or discrete isn't the factor here.

My desktop (Intel HD 4600) can't run Ikenfell, but my small laptop, which is a weaker machine (if you ignore cooling issues on the desktop) but has newer integrated graphics, can run it.

I also note that some players of Cyberpunk 2077 who have an old but powerful CPU are having trouble because the game uses AVX instructions at some point in the tutorial, causing the game to crash at that point. (There's a mod that fixes that, but I don't know if it's been updated with the most recent game update.)

So, there's the question of whether the hardware is too weak or too old to run the game; those aren't the same thing.

Also, the GPU requirements are hard to understand, as it's not clear which GPUs are better than which others. In particular, even given the names of 2 GPUs from the same manufacturer, it's not exactly obvious which one is the more powerful and/or newer one.

Are you a kindergarten teacher?
Why do adult people need to be told to learn about a piece of technology before buying/using it?
These days, with internet, it's never been easier, especially for anything computer related. A simple google (search engine) search goes a long way.

It used to be a lot worse! And sometimes it still is: move to a new house or apartment... good luck operating that old gas stove or built-in oven without an instruction manual. (just examples, experiences may vary)

Here's another example: when my dad was a lot younger, he bought a VCR (in the 80s). He read the instruction manual and learned how to program it via a 2 digit LCD and remote control. Nowadays, learning how to put somebody in CC when sending an email is like rocket science to him (just an example). Still does not compute to me... A website with benchmark results isn't hard to find, especially when it's about popular games. Preordering games is always a leap of faith, on multiple levels.

A possibility is to use a site like http://gpuboss.com/ to compare your own card with the minimum/recommended card. If gpuboss tells you your own card is the better choice then you're fine.

Another way to see how graphic cards perform relatively is to look a the benchmark lists of https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/. You can use CTRL-F to find a specific card. Downside of this site is, you need to guess beforehand wetter the card in question falls in the low end, low/high mid end or high end range.

Does it matter? An existing card is what it is. When buying a new one, budget will be the most important factor.

because they shouldn't have to. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1477

^This. I'm a computer geek since 1988 and I find it hard to find my way around model numbers nowadays. I suspect it's on purpose, to get people paying for impressive sounding but inferior products...

Of course, these days it's a challenge to get your hands on decent hardware at all. At least for reasonable prices (not paying 2k Euro for an RTX 3090).

just pay 500 euro's for your gpu and most of the time you are pretty close to something that will do in about anything.....

same goes for the cpu btw though i can't complain about the combined value of 500 euro's i'm using atm .....

so at least 2000 euro's for the case in total, figuring your buying what is pretty much the latest tech at that moment and you can really almost never go wrong

2000 euro's equals decent hardware in about any era

Like I wrote, only available in theory.

Very true!
I want to upgrade my GTX970, but I'm just going to wait. It's not like there isn't anything to play right now. Even if I wait 5 years or more, there are still good old games that I haven't played yet.

Why do you feel the need to play all the newest games? I'm sure that there are a lot of really good older games that you haven't played yet, and that you can play all "maxed out' on your minimum spec'd system.

Actually I do play CP... it's not really fluent, but when I first played Witcher 3 my then PC also struggled.
I told myself to wait until hardware was actually available... but you know how it is... "Just checking in out for laughs" and then "what happens next?! I NEED to know". So I'm putting up with the stutter - which is less bad then I expected.

It didn't run until the 1.04 patch though, only once, then never again. With the patch it crashes every hour or so - annoying yeah, but I keep coming back...The game's got an incredible pull...

If you want something cyperpunk-y, system shock-y, play Prey (if you haven't already), that runs at stable 60 fps on the 970, is "kinda open world" (Hub-based, like SS2, or Bioshock) and pretty amazing :-)
No crowds, or pondering outfits though. Or driving around (which IMO is the weakest aspect of CP anyway).

the system specs posted on Gog are just copy & paste bullshit which has zero facts behind it... they just copy the new game page from one basic template for game pages and then change the title or add images

to be clear, Steam does the same thing so its not just Gog that does this "phone it in" page design

Depends on the game, really. For some games demos make sense. For open-world games it's hard, since to really get an impression of the performance you'd need to traverse the whole world in the fasted way (which is the most strain for the system - streaming it all in while you move). That's kind of much for a simple demo.