We find ourselves in a rather curious situation since, to play well on PC, it is still possible to use hardware from several years ago. For example, a computer configured with an Intel Core i7 4770K processor overclocked to 4.5 GHz, 16 GB of DDR3, a GeForce GTX 970 or a Radeon R9 290 graphics card, is still capable of running almost any current game in 1080p and high quality while maintaining a good level of fluidity, and in a minority of cases we will have to reduce the graphics settings to medium quality.
If we have slightly more powerful configurations, such as a Core i7 6700K, 16GB of RAM and a GeForce 1070 or a Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics card, we will be able to play even in1 1440p at very high, or maximum, quality settings for most current games. As in the previous case, in some more demanding and/or worse optimized titles we will have to reduce those settings, but the experience will still be good.
The first configuration we have given mounts a 2013 processor (Haswell architecture) and a GPU from 2014Â (second-generation Maxwell), while the second configuration uses a 2015 processor (Skylake) and 2016 graphics (Pascal). Â We’re in the home stretch of 2021, so it’s amazing that with such old hardware, we can still play so well.
This proves, without a doubt, that PS4 and Xbox One have greatly weighed down the advancement in the video game industry, and have plunged us into several years of repetitive development trends and the same half-empty sandbox approach with no real innovation. As soon as a developer has tried to step out of bounds a little bit, we have clearly seen the limitations that they have tried to hide actively and passively. Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly one of the best examples.
PS4 and Xbox One continue to mark the minimum base the minimum requirements are still the same as they were five years ago, and this is the key to explain why we can play well on PC even with 2014 configurations. To contextualize this a bit better, and so that you understand what it means, think about the lifespan of a gaming PC in 1996, in a matter of two or three years it was already struggling to run new generation titles, I know from my own experience, since I had a Pentium at 133 MHz.
This trend will be broken when PS4 and Xbox One pass “to a better life”, something that, according to the latest information, will happen sometime in 2023. Â However, seeing the supply issues with PS5 and Xbox Series X, and the impact that reselling and speculation is having on the industry, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Microsoft and Sony decide to extend the life of both consoles a bit longer.
When that happens, that is, when the old generation ceases to be the lowest common denominator in video game development and the transition to the new generation is complete, we can no longer play well on PC unless we meet a number of clearly differentiated requirements that obviously, will be determined by the ⤽new generationâ¤which, by then, will have rather little of a new generation.
In this article, I want to share with you five key requirements that our PC will have to meet, if we want to be able to continue playing the new batch of games well by then. Playing well on PC will depend entirely on meeting these requirements, without exception, because any major shortcoming in one of them would cause a bottleneck which could sink the team’s performance, or severely affect the gaming experience.
1.-To game well on PC a high performance SSD is going to be a must
I don’t mean a 7GB/s PCIE Gen4 SSD, we won’t need that much performanceAnd the reason is very simple, the minimum base in multiplatform development is going to be set by Xbox X-Series X-Series S, two consoles that use a 2.4GB/s SSD, which means that any storage unit that reaches that minimum should allow us to play well on PC the new generation titles, those that we can consider as “post PS4-Xbox One”.
If we continue to use a mechanical hard drive, we will be able to install and use the new generation games, but we could experience serious problems that will go beyond high loading times:
- Jerks and stallsespecially in open world type games.
- Texture loading problems and in rendering areas with a high graphical load due to slow data transfer from a mechanical hard drive.
- Very noticeable popping (sudden appearance of graphic elements that did not appear on screen, especially at medium and long distances).
- Limitations on certain titlessuch as having to use a shorter view distance or a lower NPC density.
2.-• It will be essential to use a processor with a good IPC that has at least 6 cores and 12 threads
Both PS5 and Xbox X-Series X-Series S come with a processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, but this is not a direct port of that architecture, but rather a semi-custom solution which, due to the limitations imposed by its integration into an APU (package size and thermal constraints, mainly) works at a lower frequency and comes with a much smaller cache configuration, which translates into a much lower IPC.
The PS5 and Xbox X-Series S processor not up to the level of a Ryzen 7 3700Xbut is closer to a Ryzen 7 2700X, as it runs at a reduced frequency (up to 3.5 GHz on PS5 and up to 3.8 GHz on Xbox Series X), and has only 8 MB of L3 cache (the Ryzen 7 2700X has 16 MB of L3 cache, and the Ryzen 7 3700X has 32 MB of L3 cache). This makes a very big difference in terms of performance.
It’s also important to remember that while both consoles can handle up to 16 threads, doing so reduces the effective working frequency. On the other hand, one core and two threads are also reserved on Xbox X Series and S Series for system tasks (on PS5 we don’t know this, but it should be similar), which means that, in the end, the performance is reduced, a total of 7 cores and 14 threads are free for gaming.
All of the above helps us understand why we say that, for good PC gaming of next-gen titles, we’re not going to need a Ryzen 7 3700X or a Core i7 10700K. The starting point will be located at a much lower level, and that is that from a modest Ryzen 5 1600X or Core i5-10400 the experience should be very good, once its 6 cores and 12 wires are really put to good use. I didn’t use the Core i5-8400 as an example because it is limited to 6 cores and 6 threads, and this has already proven to be a problem in games that take advantage of 8 threads.
3.-DirectX 12 Ultimate: A key pillar for features and optimization
Next-generation games are going to rely, for the most part, on the latest revision of Microsoft’s popular set of APIs. If you don’t remember what exactly DirectX 12 Ultimate isI invite you to review this article, where we told you, at the time, all its keys.
DirectX 12 Ultimate introduces very important new features that are mainly focused on performance and optimization of video games. Having a graphics card that is compatible with all of them will be essential to be able to play all the new generation titles well on PC. In this regard, we should remember that this new set of APIs will be the foundation that Microsoft will use for Xbox X-Series S and PC-centric game development, and will also give developers access to new technologies that will take better advantage of the latest hardware.
The list of DirectX 12 Ultimate compatible graphics cards is very simple GeForce RTX 20-series, GeForce RTX 30-series and Radeon RX 6000. If you’re wondering if you can still play with a graphics card that doesn’t support DirectX 12 Ultimate, the answer is yes, as long as it supports DirectX 12, but the experience might not be great, as you’ll miss out on important optimizations that are meant to make a big difference.
4.-Graphics memory goes up: 6GB for 1080p, 8GB for 1440p
Right now, the minimum amount of graphics memory we need to play well on PC is 4 GB GB, as long as we’re running in 1080p resolutionand we don’t mind adjusting the graphic quality a bit in some cases. Nothing serious, since in the end downgrading from very high, or ultra, to high is not a big sacrifice.
When the transition to the new generation is complete, the demand for graphics memory in games will increase considerably, but we will not see the exaggerated levels that have been mentioned on some occasions You’re not going to need 16GB of graphics memory to play well on PC, it’s a myth, in fact you’ll be able to do it without problems with much more modest figures. With what I’m currently seeing, and based on the configuration that PS5 and Xbox X-Series X-Series S come with, I can give you a pretty reliable estimate of exactly how much you’ll need.
PS5 and Xbox X-Series have 16GB of unified memory, while Xbox S-Series has 10GB. That memory is used interchangeably for storing system data and instructions and data and graphics elements, y is accessible by both the CPU as well as the GPU. This means that it is equivalent to the total RAM plus VRAM that we would have in a PC. So a PC with 16GB of RAM and 8GB of VRAM would obviously have a larger amount of overall memory, although it would operate under a tighter division.
Microsoft consoles reserve 2.5GB of system memory, and PS5 also reserves an unspecified amount, so in the end the memory available for gaming is smaller than it seems Xbox X Series would have 13.5GB, and Xbox S Series would have around 7.5GB. With this in mind, it’s clear that developers will once again have to juggle Xbox Series S, and that this console is at its best in 1080p. So how much graphics memory will I need to play well on PC? Well, it will depend on the resolution, but overall I think this list is pretty reliable:
- 1080p: 6 GB of VRAM.
- 1440p: 8GB VRAM.
- 2160p: 10GB VRAM.
5.-RAM memory and storage: Will the requirements go up?
These two points are very interesting. Right now, in most cases, 8 GB of RAM is enough to play current titles properly, although it is true that to play the most demanding games well on PC it is advisable to have 12 GB of RAM, as it will be necessary to have a lot of RAM certain micro-threads are eliminated. Such a configuration is rare, and therefore a requirement of 16 GB of RAM is generally listed, even though it is unrealistic.
No current game ever consumes that much RAM, in fact in most cases those more demanding titles average between 9GB and 11GB, but still run fine (almost always) on 8GB RAM configurations Having 16GB is a guarantee that we�ll be ready for when PS4 and Xbox One are forgotten, and developers focus on the next generation, so it�s safe to say that there won�t be a major increase in requirements in this regard.
As for storage, this is also a very striking topic, since everything seems to indicate that, contrary to what logic would lead us to think, not only will we not see a significant increase in the space occupied by the new generation games, but that this could be reduced. Mark Cerny, chief engineer of PS5, explained this issue clearly during the presentation of the console, and is that in the new generation titles the use of SSD will allow to end the duplication of data that is used in current games, and will allow a greater compression of data.
 That data duplication also has an explanation, and that is, to alleviate the limitations of the slow hard drives used by PS4 and Xbox One, installations were performed with repeated data in various sectionswhich speeded up disk access and read times. This problem will be a thing of the past when the SSD is standardized, and the increased data compression will also be key to reducing, or at least maintaining, the space taken up by games.