Here's What You Need to Use Battlefield V's Ray Tracing

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

Battlefield V is shaping up to be one of the prettiest games about the ugliest side of humanity. Electronic Arts (EA) has made the game's support for DirectX Raytracing, as presented by Nvidia's RTX graphics cards, one of its primary selling points. Now the company's revealed what you'll have to cram into your system to experience ray tracing for yourself (if you're not sure what experiencing ray tracing entails, read up on the new tech here), along with the recommended specs for those without Nvidia's fancy new GPUs.

Having an RTX graphics card is the first requirement, of course, though EA said you can settle for the RTX 2070 instead of springing for the RTX 2080 Ti (which could be a good thing, considering the reports about RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards failing more often than early adopters would like). An operating system offering DirectX Ray Tracing is also required, so the as-yet-unreleased Windows 10 October 2018 Update is necessary.

Battlefield V's ray tracing support also requires a stronger CPU and more RAM than the game's base graphics. The requirements aren't prohibitive, especially for someone with an RTX card, with the recommendations being an AMD Ryzen 2700 or Intel Core i7-8700 paired with 16GB of RAM. Other specs--storage, internet connections, etc.--are identical from the minimum specs up to those recommended for ray tracing.

See all of EA's recommended specs in the table below:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 Minimum SpecsRecommended SpecsRecommended Specs for DXR
Operating System64-bit Windows 7/8.1/1064-bit Windows 10Windows 10 October 2018 Update
CPUAMD FX-8350 / Intel Core i5-6600KAMD Ryzen 3 1300X / Intel Core i7-4790 or equivalentAMD Ryzen 7 2700 / Intel Core i7-8700
RAM8GB12GB16GB
GPUNvidia GeForce GTX 1050 or GTX 660 2GB / AMD Radeon RX 560 or HD 7850 2GBNvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GBNvidia GeForce RTX 2070
DirectX11.0-compatible video card or equivalent11.1-compatible video card or equivalentDirectX Raytracing-compatible video card
Internet Connection512KBPS or faster512KBPS or faster512KBPS or faster
Storage50GB50GB50GB

Battlefield V's Rocky Launch

Battlefield V has had a bit of a rocky launch. The game was delayed from October to November so DICE could respond to feedback from its open beta. Then, EA revealed that the game's Firestorm battle royale mode--which was already garnering criticism for its apparently limited scope--wouldn't actually debut until March 2019...assuming it's unlike the base game and sticks to its release schedule.

EA is set to release Battlefield V on November 20. EA plans to add ray tracing support as part of a day-one patch, which is likely to include other improvements. For more on the game, you can check out our benchmarks from the closed alpha, as well as our look at how DICE scaled back ray tracing to improve performance and make the graphics more believable. We also have explored the game's open beta.

Nathaniel Mott
Freelance News & Features Writer

Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.

  • nadhir.brighet
    I'm not really into the whole ray tracing thing, I think we have other areas where graphics suck big time, polygone count is too low, textures are still are of low quality, collision systems are far from being perfect even in some games where it is of utmost importance like fifa or PES, physics...etc
    Reply
  • richardvday
    Ray tracing has potential to be awesome but as with any new tech there are teething problems and of course it's going to be expensive for a while. We need to see what the devs do with it first to see if its not just hype.
    If you want more polygons and higher res textures they will come.in time.
    It's already much better than even 5 to ten years ago.
    Went from a cd to multiple cds needed to dvda then multiple again now Blu-ray and eventually we will need more than one. The gpus are the biggest holdup and Internet speed with most people downloading games 300gb games are too big still. It will come in time.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    I'm going to sit on the sidelines and see how the next generation of cards perform with ray tracing and how much adoption happens. Right now there is a huge performance hit and adoption is going to be very slim along with Nividas exorbitantly high prices this is a wait and see how it mutres situation.
    Reply
  • TechyInAZ
    I played the BFV beta trial, and I think the game already looks incredibly gorgeous without RTX.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    21449972 said:
    I played the BFV beta trial, and I think the game already looks incredibly gorgeous without RTX.

    Same here. It is a really good looking game. I didn't like the gameplay all that much though.
    Reply
  • caustin582
    Battlefield V is shaping up to be one of the prettiest games about the ugliest side of humanity.
    Oh come on, the RTX launch wasn't *that* bad.
    Reply
  • DookieDraws
    God, I hope they don't screw this game up!
    Reply
  • littleleo
    21449969 said:
    I'm going to sit on the sidelines and see how the next generation of cards perform with ray tracing and how much adoption happens. Right now there is a huge performance hit and adoption is going to be very slim along with Nividas exorbitantly high prices this is a wait and see how it mutres situation.
    yeah, I'm with you. My plans to upgrade are on indefinite hold. I'm not interested in paying extra for RTX since their is nothing I need to play that uses it. I may go AMD depending on what they have come out next. So far the Nvidia launch is a big disappointment to me. I was hoping for better graphics performance for around what I paid for my last GPU. Not hundreds and hundreds more for a slight improvement and tech that nothing uses, and I don't really feel a need for.

    Reply
  • littleleo
    21450401 said:
    Battlefield V is shaping up to be one of the prettiest games about the ugliest side of humanity.
    Oh come on, the RTX launch wasn't *that* bad.
    LOL! Funny!

    Reply
  • jpe1701
    I never understood why game companies put out a day 1 patch so you have to wait before you can play on day 1. My 4Mbps down takes days to download anyways so what's a little more really but it's the principal darn it.
    Reply