Minimum Spec Inflation
 

Well, I figured those new consoles would cause some problems for the PC Master Race and those problems are starting to show up. Check out the minimum specs for the new Assassin's Creed. The "ultra" textures for Shadow of Mordor require a 6GB video card!

Except… are they? Or is Ubisoft just slacking off and putting up specs they know for sure will work fine without bothering to experiment a bit to see what will and won't work? Lots of folks have reported being able to play with ultra textures on much lesser cards, too.

vram != ram

Since we don't play games in cinema on that huge screen, people shouldn't really care for "ultra" in that one.

For new AC specs I'm pretty sure Ubi just wants to avoid performance problems/support. This way in case of lags/stutters/microfreezes they can answer "yea, shove off, your rig doesn't meet the requirements!".

For Watch Dogs they asked for minimum one of recent CPUs and 6Gb RAM - and according to people the game actually runs on 2Gb RAM without a glitch (okay, not with everything set on superhigh).

But it's a positive thing if you ask me - as I see no other way to persuade people into upgrading their 5 years old machines already. And by upgrading to meet AC requirements, the new machine will also run The Witcher 3 flawlessly! :D
Automatically means - less performance problems/support reports to cdpr.

Ubi's PR is rediculous and whole internet is laughing on their recent statements (30 fps lock in Unity reasoning, same resolution on PS4 and xbone), but in this case with asking for better specs than actually needed, they did right.

Those ultra textures DO require more than 3GB to run smoothly - I know, because I've tested it extensively. I have 3GB - and it starts stuttering whenever certain things start happening, like rain or whatever. On High - there's never an issue.

That said, I don't know if 4GB could be enough.

Regardless, we're talking about a specific setting that's completely optional. I don't see the problem, unless these things change how the game looks in a significant way.

When it comes to this specific game, I can report that the textures make a MINIMAL visual difference. Honestly, I struggle to see the difference - though in screenshots it's just barely visible.

I wouldn't fret about this just yet.

Hmm, I had to go look but my card is a 4 gig Nvidia 770 that is superclocked or some such word. Hopefully it'll be enough to run Fallout 4 and Witcher 3. As I only play crpgs, I don't need as fancy a card as some folks. I've not played Dishonoured yet, but I should be able to max that one out if I ever get to it, I hope. I know it plays Skyrim with all the bells and whistles, though I don't use ENB. I'm too dumb to figger those out :)

Well, there is another thread about this… but the discussion there was whatever min. spescs would require more than 2 GB VRAM within two years or not.

I think it is not really inflated, minimum system requirements is not to say "It won't run on anything less" it is to say that, this is the minimum you can use to get an acceptable experience. Consoles do have 8 GB of fast ram available, depending on what kind of game it is, it might be able to use 4 GB or more of that memory for graphics. So it is only natural that we see a step increase in VRAM requirements, as well as RAM requirements.

Seems to me like a not-so-open-world game could even use 5 GB of memory. But DArtigan's point is a good one - is it enough of a difference to bother with if you have to then make textures that work in a 3 GB card or tell the PC folks they have to wait for 5+ GB cards? Maybe not.

I am a little surprised we didn't see some bigger memory cards showing up for Christmas this year, though.

Well the 980ti and or a new titan are rumored to be released before the end of the year.

I would bet we'll get a 6 or 8 GB version.

I'm looking to upgrade as soon as 980 TI hits ;)