Topic on Talk:Halo 5: Forge

Since there's a lot of people who clearly haven't read the editing guide, I'll post this relevant quote (emphasis mine):

It holds all the official specifications given by the developer on what is required at the minimum to both run the game at a basic level and run it with all graphical settings maxed out at a playable frame rate.

As such, unless the recommended settings can be proven to meet that last statement, that's why the 4K Ultra settings have been used. They're the highest requirements on the list and, as such, the ones which logically would allow the game to be run "with all graphical settings maxed out at a playable frame rate".

To get things more balanced, here's my further line of thinking from the chat:

The way I'm reading the requirements for Halo 5 Forge [Minimum, Recommended, Ultra], they're laid out as "Basic", "Good", and "Best". Usually, the recommended specs listed for a game ARE what will get all the max settings and a playable framerate. Here? To be honest, it's objectively unclear. I could interpret it as I've already explained, or I could interpret it as "this is how you get the game running, this is how you get all the best settings and a playable framerate, and here's how you get all THAT at 4K."
In short, with the latter, the recommended specs would be what is actually needed.

I really think we need one of the site's rulemakers to make a decision here for the above reasons.

Generally with multi-tier system requirements, the values under "Recommended" should be used for the Recommended fields. I treat these "Ultra" requirements as overkill at the time of release.

In the case of Halo 5: Forge, as you already mentioned, the tiers would be broken down as such:

Minimum: Absolute baseline to run the game at all.
Recommended: Get the best visuals at a playable framerate (~60 FPS) with the standard resolution at time of release (1080p).
Ultra: Get the absolute best visual settings at a playable framerate (~60 FPS) with an abnormal resolution at the time of release (4K).

Good point with the abnormality of 4K at the time of release. Unless someone else has a reason other than "4K is where consumers are headed", I'd vote to keep the system requirements (not like we're actually taking one) as listed in the "recommended" category by the game devs.