Future development of erasable phase change recording requires a thorough understanding of the fundamental mechanisms involved in crystallization processes to be able to forecast the behavior of a new material or to guide its optimization when submitted to specific conditions. In this paper, we emphasize that a predictive simulation is valuable only if a good modeling and accurate values of the involved parameters are used. We will present the main characteristics of our phase change model (effect of the short-pulse laser excitation, chemical influence of the materials in contact with the PC layer, stabilization of the amorphous state for very thin film layers) and we will discuss experimental and simulated crystallization behaviors.