Far Cry 6's PC System Requirements Are Brutal for Ultra Quality Gaming
The minimum requirements are pretty tame, but then we haven't yet seen how the game looks at lower settings.
Ubisoft has officially released the Far Cry 6 system requirements for its upcoming action-adventure FPS game. The requirements for a high-quality gaming experience are quite demanding, and you'll want one of the best graphics cards and best CPUs for gaming if you want to play the game in all its gory, er... glory. The game has all the latest technology, including DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, and DirectX Raytracing. Not that you need to have all of those for the baseline experience. Here's what Ubi says you'll need.
Minimum Requirements for 1080p 30 fps Low Preset
- AMD Ryzen 3 1200 / Intel Core i5-4460
- AMD Radeon RX 460 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 960
- 4GB of VRAM
- 8GB of RAM (Ubisoft recommends a dual-channel setup)
- 60GB of Storage
- Windows 10 64-bit
Recommended Requirements for 1440p 60 fps Ultra Preset
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600X / Intel Core i7-9700
- AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
- 8GB of VRAM
- 16GB of RAM (Ubisoft recommends a dual-channel setup)
- 60GB of Storage
- Windows 10 64-bit
Ultra Requirements for 4K 30 fps Ultra (Presumably With Ray Tracing)
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700 / Intel Core i7-9700
- AMD Radeon RX 6800 / Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
- 10GB of VRAM
- 16GB of RAM (Ubisoft recommends a dual-channel setup)
- 60GB of Storage
- Windows 10 64-bit
The minimum requirements for Far Cry 6 are easily attainable. All you need is the equivalent of a first-generation Ryzen 3 and or 4th Gen Haswell Core i5. There's no mention of whether the game uses AVX instructions, which has been a bit of a problem with older CPUs, but then everything made in the past decade should suffice. For the GPU, Ubi lists a Maxwell GTX 960 or AMD RX 460 graphics card, with 4GB of RAM. Whether the game will run at all on GPUs with 2GB isn't clear, but many GTX 960 cards came that way so it's something we plan on testing next month.
Most people will want something better than the bare minimum settings, of course. We wouldn't expect to have a good experience playing Far Cry 6 on hardware this old, though the next step up is a doozy.
The recommended PC is for 1440p and 60 fps at ultra quality, which is a big jump in quality as well. Here Ubi recommends a Ryzen 5 3600X or Core i7-9700, 16GB of system memory, and an 8GB graphics card with at least an RX 5700 XT or RTX 2070 Super. We suspect you can get 1080p medium to high quality running at 60 fps on far less potent hardware, but we'll have to wait to test and find out.
The final 'ultra' requirements don't explicitly state that ray tracing is enabled, but given the 4K 30 fps target and even higher hardware recommendations, that seems likely. Normally, 4K runs about half as fast as 1440p, so the recommended PC above should be fine for 4K ultra at 30 fps. Turning on ray traced shadows — still arguably one of the least important and impressive uses of ray tracing hardware in our view — tends to drop framerates by 20-30%, and would justify the move to RX 6000 and RTX 30-series hardware.
Far Cry 6 is another AMD promotional title, which explains the use of FSR and RT shadows. In other games that support more advanced ray tracing effects, Nvidia's RTX 3080 tends to be a lot faster than AMD's Radeon RX 6800. Actually, it's almost universally faster unless a game (like Assassin's Creed Odyssey) gets heavily tuned for AMD's GPU hardware. Either way, finding a fast GPU remains a difficult and expensive proposition, so hopefully your PC is already up to snuff.
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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
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Flyfisherman In the article it says only 60 GB of storage.Reply
One thing about the Far Cry 6 storage req: 60 GB (SSD recommended), 37 GB for optional HD textures. So that means about 97 GB in total if I'm correct.
And that make sense if one compare the storage needed for Far Cry 5: on my SSD it takes up about 68GB (I just checked).
A new Far Cry game with a new story, new or updated graphics engine and more graphic intense, will of course take up more space than the old one. -
Sleepy_Hollowed If this is any indication for the next generation of games, yikes, the graphics card shortage will be eternal, or AAA gaming will slow down.Reply -
_dawn_chorus_ I wonder if it will be as CPU intensive as the last couple FarCry titles, or the newer Assassins Creed games.Reply -
_dawn_chorus_ ReplySleepy_Hollowed said:If this is any indication for the next generation of games, yikes, the graphics card shortage will be eternal, or AAA gaming will slow down.
I dunno, looking at the steam statistics the vast majority of people seem to be using 1060's, meaning the past few years people have played all the AAA titles on that level of GPU. Seems like we are just seeing the beginnings of a new generation of quality in graphics which is exciting. Hopefully the look of it justifies the performance hit though... I gotta say AC:Valhalla doesn't really look any better than the past few of those titles but is runs even worse. Cyberpunk however looks fantastic maxed out, and seems to justify its tax on the GPU. Thank the gods for DLSS and FSR though!! -
TheOtherOne Reply
Sadly, AAA gaming has been slow downed on PCs for atleast last 10 years or more. Developers are more interested in making and tuning games for crappy Consoles hardware and THEN creating bad ports for PCs.Sleepy_Hollowed said:If this is any indication for the next generation of games, yikes, the graphics card shortage will be eternal, or AAA gaming will slow down. -
scottsoapbox Reply
Depends on your monitor resolution. For instance, my ultrawide monitor is wider 1440p which isn't quite as demanding as 4K. And according to the steam survey, many people are still using 20 year old 1080p monitors so their 10 year old GPU doesn't hold them back that much.Sleepy_Hollowed said:If this is any indication for the next generation of games, yikes, the graphics card shortage will be eternal, or AAA gaming will slow down. -
deanimate Don't think my i7-2600k + 970 will be doing too hot with this. Although I did get through FC5 pretty well so maybe a chanceReply -
salgado18 Reply
I like this. Some people may want (or need) less space for the game, and giving them a choice is very important. I still remember back then when some installs asked you if you wanted a minimal setup (10MB, CD needed) or full setup (500MB, no CD needed), for example. Nowadays, with high-performance SSDs costing a good amount, it's not unexpected for people to buy smaller drives.Flyfisherman said:One thing about the Far Cry 6 storage req: 60 GB (SSD recommended), 37 GB for optional HD textures. So that means about 97 GB in total if I'm correct. -
-Fran- Reply
Hm... Should i read between the lines then that, for 1440p, the 8GB VRAM is with the "normal" textures? So if you were to use the HQ textures, then the VRAM requirement would jump a lot, no?Flyfisherman said:In the article it says only 60 GB of storage.
One thing about the Far Cry 6 storage req: 60 GB (SSD recommended), 37 GB for optional HD textures. So that means about 97 GB in total if I'm correct.
And that make sense if one compare the storage needed for Far Cry 5: on my SSD it takes up about 68GB (I just checked).
A new Far Cry game with a new story, new or updated graphics engine and more graphic intense, will of course take up more space than the old one.
Regards. -
renz496 ReplySleepy_Hollowed said:If this is any indication for the next generation of games, yikes, the graphics card shortage will be eternal, or AAA gaming will slow down.
Just don't go for 4k. Stay at 1440p or 3ven better 1080p. And don't get obsessed with ultra setting as well.