It would be interesting to have other member’s views on these thoughts.
I was considering buying The Vanishing of Ethan Carter until I read the minimum specs it was only when I saw it required 4 Gig ram that I realised that you would need a 64 bit system to run a full 4 Gig, there was no indication of this in the minimum system specs or elsewhere the pre order advert.
The same happened when I bought the Strike Suit Zero upgrade at the time of purchase there was no mention of it being 64 bit only and I just assumed the system requirements were the same as my current version (my fault for not reading the small print) but, fortunately I still had a copy of the original so was able to reinstall plus, the upgrade price was a good bargain therefore I decided to keep it for the future.
I.M.H.O I feel that if a game is only playable on a 64 bit os it should be labeled prominently as such and the game specs should be in bolder print to remind people that they are important.
I also think that G.O.G. should follow a Steam lead and allow potential buyers access to game manuals before buying so that buyers can appreciate the learning curve involved before they buy.
I have bought many good games here but, found that whilst I wanted to play them I just didn’t have the time available or the necessary dedication to learn to play them.
Reading the manuals beforehand would have probably stopped me buying them but, I know that I would have still bought just as many alternative games.

If something is in bold, you will go to that and ignore everything else, so that's not a solution.
They start with that anyway: "Minimum system requirements: Windows Vista(64bit only) / 7(64bit only) / 8 (64bit only)"

You might want to steer your criticism to actual mislabeling. You even admit to not bothering to learn the games. Laziness is not cured by overlabeling and adding features. When the solution is within, you just have to start digging instead of waiting for external "help".

I would like to refrain from calling him "lazy" as he wrote nothing like it. Hes merely writing that he doesn't have the time and the necessary dedication regarding playing, which is also requiring time. Labeling a product concisely so 32bit OS users understand whats going on is a very important factor. I usually believe that anything on here is rightly labeled but I'm just a human so obviously I can be wrong.

From the information I can gather I can't see if this game is truely for 32bit or not, regardless of implications of being 64bit. It's kinda wishy-washy. I guess it's for 32bit OS's though, but I wouldn't be much suprised if this is actually not the case.

However, I'd say its actually no true biggie since if in doubt, just buy the game anyway since 30 day money back guarantee is a big deal here. So nobody is at fault here :).

As far as my own opinion goes, I just think that don2712 should buy the game anyway. GOG support will provide him with usefull info if there are problems. And if nothing helps, you will get your money back.

Yeah, that's not a 64 bit restricted game. Looks interesting. http://www.vg247.com/2014/08/21/the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-pc-steam-gog/

As for the laziness, learning to play a game is part of the process. You start playing and you learn gradually. If you have no time to learn, you have no time to play. That's why it's important to only purchase what really interests you.

i quote :

"Minimum system requirements: WindowsXP SP3 or higher, Intel Core2 Duo or equivalent AMD, 4 GB RAM, DirectX9c compliant graphics card with 512MB of VRAM, 9 GB available HDD space, DirectX9c compliant sound card."

For the record there's no service pack 3. for Windows XP 64 bit, so the minimum requirement is a 32 bits OS

Now to be honest : when i see 4 GB of ram , i won't run this on a 32 bit OS (even with some tweaks)

if you try to run this game on a 32 bit OS there will probaby some limitations with the options & a lots of disk swap (unless you have a SSD)

this is just a preorder so the gamecard, MAY NOT the final one ; i suggest either you contact GOG through the support ot the devs through their blog . But don't have high hope with the performance on a 32 bits OS (just say'ing)

even if i agree about the ability to read the manual before buying ; the problem is there's no manual on Steam ;) atm

System requirements have been terribly inaccurate these last few years, though. Especially for indies, testing the game on more than a handful of computers is rarely done. Even big companies struggle with that. It's best to just compare with other players.

Yeah , i agree and on Steam it's worse....

that's why i suggested to contact gog's support or the devs (the later is better ihmo)

there ; http://www.theastronauts.com/ (at the very bottom of the page)

If your system has more than 4Gigs and you can't use it all, there's always ramdisks which can take over the remainder of the memory.

As for the minimum specs, as mentioned they are usually overblown. There's proof of games running on considerably lower hardware and doing just fine (although some graphics options usually are lowered or disabled altogether).

If you have enough memory generally Virtual Memory only becomes bottleneck. You can also turn off extra eye-candy or services in the background you aren't using (Like print spooler, if you don't have a printer).

Something curious to know. As memory was becoming more accessible the x86 architecture went through revisions letting it have access to more memory. Although each memory segment couldn't be larger than 2gigs (31bit signed addressing), the CPU could access and handle considerably higher: Something like 36 or 40 bit memory addressing. This isn't really a surprise as 8-bit computers did 16bit addressing, so it's the same thing. This means a program that wanted to use more than 4 gigs would have it's data separated into multiple gig allocations. Although how the CPU handles this in protected mode and if it uses the memory registers (CS,DS,ES,SS,FS,GS) i'm not sure... 64bit just makes it easier as you have a lot more space to work with, especially as a single block of memory.

They didn't start with that when they offered the Strike Suit Zero update there was no indication that it was 64 bit only when I bought it although there is now.
I could run many 4 gig games on 32 bit and settle for reduced performance on many levels or in some cases OM messages and in some games I do but, I find them less than satisfying, it's like buying a limo but only being allowed to ride a bike.

You have misinterpreted my comment I did not say "not bothering" I cited time restrictions and the lack of dedication (which also involves time) to use my limited time in that way.
I do not have a lot of playing time available and around 300+ games from various sources, it's not that I can't be bothered to learn a new game, I have to do that often but, in some cases especially with some (not all) detailed simulation or management games (the learning curves on these games vary enormously) I learn as much as I can in the time I have, a week passes until I next access the game and I may have forgotten much of that.
I don't want external help only two pieces of information to be made available, is the game going to be suitable for my os and generally that information is available although, sometimes inaccurate and access to the manual to assess the learning curve and if the game is really what I want.
I spend enough time already on line digging to research games before buying and G.O.G. is my favourite place of purchase, I just feel that better labelling and more information such as access to the manual would be of help.

Hi. I didn't know they changed the info about SSZ. Sorry about that. That was obviously bad.

First, you can't trust specs in general. They do very little testing and throw out some numbers.
When they state that a game requires 4 GB, they usually assume that you'll be running a bunch of programs in the background. No game uses that much, so clean boot + game will usually be fine. That they ask for only 512 MB of VRAM says it all anyway. That will run on a 32-bit XP with an 8800GT. I tend to look at the recommended section anyway. Sometimes, there's a huge gap, other times, they're almost the same. Not reliable info.

I agree that for some games, you have to memorize a lot of features, so I guess if you can only play once in a while, it's more difficult. It happens to me too.
Thanks for the reply.

About Strike suite zero , i suppose you speak of the Director's Cut version, which requires more hardware requirement than the original one ?

Neverthless i didn't used yet my 85% coupon off , because as far i know :

1 - GOG don't remove automaticaly the older version : which makes 2 entires for the same game in the shelves : the original game is avaible as bonus with the director's cut. The older game could now auto removed , but i have no idea.

2 - there's alsmost no point whith the directory cut, aside to break things in the game >.< and higher system requirements

so i can't remember about the original version ; since the gamecard have been remplaced : thanks GOG -_-

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There's more & more computers with 64 bit OS, i don't say it's a mandatory, but you must expect in a near future it will be more & more a mandatory for new games

For this game , aside the infos in the gamecard ,; i can't tell if it's exagerated or not, sitll it's a minimum requirement.
But as pointed out above it could be exagerated. / badly optimized or anything else like this Sometimes the requirements are totaly ridiculous x_x

But i understand the fact : to know or not if a 64 bit OS is a mandatory or not...

I repeat : contact the devs (it's the best source for your original questions) ; and no there's no manual. I hardly see how a manual could be avaible since a preorder game is often not the final product : it's often subject to have many changes. -> BUT a demo for preoder would be a very nice addition.