If we played a video game on a PC at least once, we know very well that, compared to consoles (where you turn on, put the disk and games), a game may not start or be viewed with a low resolution or refresh rate, ruining, in fact, every video-ludic experience (you lose more time finding the configuration than really playing!).In this article we try to give you a hand, showing you what they are Technical specifications and of hardware requirements to have on a PC to play video games, losing little time with the settings, and playing to the maximum of the possibilities with an acceptable speed.
At the end of the guide, we will be able to understand if our PC is suitable to play a specific game, if it is able to play all the games (even the newest ones) or if we need some hardware upgrade. READ ALSO -> Most powerful PC ever: better hardware parts todayIn the article on things to know before buying a new computer, we pointed out how much spending can go high if you plan to use your PC to play modern video games.
THE PC games, in fact, are the most demanding programs from the point of view of system requirements.
Let’s just say that, if you plan to buy a Windows PC to use only as a video game machine, you might as well buy a console and play there, since it’s all optimized and ready to use in just a few seconds.
If instead, we are particularly demanding in terms of graphics rendering, then using the PC could be the right choice, but we must, first of all, see if our hardware allows us to enjoy so much graphic magnificence.
1) Check the hardware available
To check the hardware specifications of your computer we can use a free program like Speccy, produced by the same company that issues CCleaner.
Using this simple program we can find out what CPU we have, the amount of RAM present, the type of RAM memory, the motherboard model, the hard disks present and, what should not be underestimated when it comes to games, the video card model.
If we look for other useful programs to find out information on the PC hardware, we can use one of the following:
– AIDA64
– CPU-Z
– GPU-Z
2) Find out if a game runs on our PC
To see if a particular game can run on our computer, without making any kind of deepening at the hardware level, we can use the service offered by the site Can you run it?
From this site, just choose the game title from among the most tested at the bottom or by entering its name in the top search bar and then run the test on the PC to see if the minimum requirements are met.
If the requirements are met, we can start the game without problems, otherwise, the site will warn us about what we are lacking and any limits we may encounter (maybe we can only play a low-resolution title).
Even if only by using this site we can get the answers we need, but if we intend to update our machine or go into more detail about the components needed to run any game, we recommend that you read the following chapter of the guide carefully.
3) Hardware components to play
The most important hardware components and those to focus on are:
– CPU
The processor is the component that often misleads us when we talk about video games, having a definitely important role in the execution of these programs but not decisive (as instead, a GPU can have it for example).
This is why it is possible to play without problems even with processors from 4-5 years ago, the important thing is to carefully check the number of cores present: to be able to run very well all modern games it is necessary to have a quad-core CPU, even better if it has 8 cores or above.
If we comply with this requirement (easily controllable with CPU-Z recommended at the beginning of the guide) we will be able to run virtually all the games on the market without any problems (unless specific requires very powerful processors).
For video games Intel and AMD are the same, therefore we will not have to make any kind of drastic choice in the case of a new processor: we choose the product that has the best quality/price ratio, considering that a large part of the expense is often concentrated on the CPUs.
READ ALSO -> Buy processor or PC CPU: what you need to know
– Video Card
The video card (GPU) and the most important hardware component to run video games, since it takes care of generating images in real-time.
Even the computer with a powerful CPU but an insufficient video card will have problems running the latest games released on the market.
If we already have a video card on our computer, let’s check with GPU-Z (recommended at the beginning of the guide) which GPU model integrates and how much video memory is present: in order to play well a good part of the games at least one is required NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 or an AMD RX 560 flanked by a quantity of video memory equal to or greater than 4 GB.
If we do not have these video cards, the game chosen could certainly start but we will have to choose a lower resolution or set graphic parameters on higher values in order to maintain good fluidity.
If instead, we have to buy a new video card, we can focus on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or RTX2070 or 2080 models, with prices always higher than € 600.
READ ALSO: Which video card (graphics card) to buy for the computer
– RAM
The RAM is the computer’s memory and the data generated by the operating system and all non-graphical game data are saved.
Although it is not as important as the first two components, we recommend that you always use more than 12 GB of RAM to run any type of game without problems.
By now the DDR4 are the masters and will soon be the only supported standard for computer memories, but even if we have the old DDR3 we should not have any particular problems with games (especially if we have fast and snappy memories).
To deepen the discussion, we refer you to reading our guide -> How to increase RAM and add new memory to the PC.
– Storage
The hard disk can affect the loading times of a game and affect (in some cases) the fluidity, since if it is not fast enough it can slow down the reading and writing of new data at the CPU, RAM, and GPU.
For this reason, we recommend everyone to adopt an SSD as the main storage system for Windows and programs (including games): in this way, we will have faster loads and we don’t risk seeing the video game slow down because the antivirus has decided to start a scan!
If we don’t know what an SSD is and we want to install one on our computer, we invite you to read the following guide -> Best SSD disks to buy to make the PC go fast.
4) Other PC components
Among the other hardware components, given for granted system requirements such as the sound card and internet connection, it is necessary also to dwell on the power supply and the cooling system on the computer.
The higher the performance of a computer, the more powerful the power supply must be, in particular, to give power to modern video cards (which can consume a lot when we play a modern game or a game with a high level of detail).
The cooling system should be chosen according to the silence: when the game uses a lot of CPU and GPU, the sounds emitted by the case must be minimal otherwise you risk ruining the video-ludic experience (with the default or old fans it will seem to hear a helicopter starting!).
On both topics, we invite you to read our two guides Which power supply to choose for the PC and how many Watts are required is Manage the PC fans for better cooling and airflow.
Finally, let’s not forget the monitor: a good FullHD warning is essential to be able to play all modern games, while for the most demanding we can also find 4K UHD monitors, with a ratio of 21: 9 and a frequency of 144Hz, for beautiful and fluid images Like never before.
In this regard, we invite you to read our two guides Best PC monitors to buy between 100 and 200 Euros is Buy the 21: 9 wide monitor (ultra widescreen).
5) Programs to speed up game execution
From the software point of view, there are also several programs that allow you to automatically optimize the computer to play video games.
The best we can try is without a doubt Game Booster, available for free for all PCs (even not for gaming).
Using this program we will be able to optimize many parameters of the operating system and the graphics card automatically also depending on the game we intend to launch: in this way we will obtain an environment that is completely optimized to make every game run at its maximum, without spending too much time fiddling and changing parameters of which we do not know the function.
In this regard, we can deepen the subject by reading the guide to get your PC up and running video games