Serious question- why are minimum requirements so low and what happens if you play on a system that barely passes the recommended requirements?

Like does the game run but lowest settings on everything but smooth or ??

Truly dont know and curious.

EDIT: i am planning to build a PC around 9060XT 16GB and hook it up to a 4k Hisense UR8 RGB tv with the idea of using FSR (not FG) to play the above games and more of this nature. I am just really unsure if the GPU is strong enough to achieve average 80+ frames on these games with visuals at least on high and if possible maximum settings to ensure the game world looks awesome like it will on PS5 or Xbox when you play the same games.

I just cant afford higher end GPU and prefer PC for the flexibility of games and not being locked to a system.

So I played RDR1 on my laptop for half an hour and I got these temperatures. Is it normal or should I be concerned for it?

Hi everyone! I have a question about my "project" pc. It currently has an hd7970,an i5 7600k,16gb ddr4, (good) sata ssd. Currently it has trouble loading the levels of BeamNG Drive. It only loads like lines of level and the road. My question is which gpu is worth upgrading/buying to replace that hd7970 that can run BeamNG Drive?