The wait for the next Civilization game isn’t quite over—there’s still several months to go before publisher 2K releases Sid Meier’s Civilization VII to PC (Windows, macOS, and Linux), Switch, and both PlayStation and Xbox game consoles. For those who plan to pick up and play the strategy game on PC, 2K and developer Fireaxis Games have posted a set of Minimum, Recommended, and Ultra requirements, and the good news here is that it’s not a super-demanding game.
Starting with what you need just to get your foot in the door, the official Minimum specifications to play at 1080p with Low settings and at 30 frames per second, call for an Intel Core i3-10100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 processor; a GeForce GTX 1050, AMD Radeon RX 460, or Intel Arc A380 graphics card; 8GB of RAM; 20GB of solid state storage (SSD) space, and Windows 10 or 11 64-bit.
To play at the Recommended settings, which entails 1080p at Medium settings and maintaining 60 frames per second, bumps the specs up across the board, starting with an Intel Core i5-10400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor. It also calls for a more powerful GPU—GeForce RTX 2060, Radeon RX 6600, or Arc A750—and twice as much RAM at 16GB, while keeping the storage and OS requirements the same.
Finally, if you want to play in glorious 4K, the Ultra (4K at High settings and 60 frames per second) specifications require a Core i7-14700F or Ryzen 9 5950X processor, GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT graphics card, 32GB of RAM, 20GB SSD, and Windows 10 or 11 in 64-bit form.
The notable omission in the Ultra category is any reference to an Intel Arc GPU. This suggests that Intel’s Arc A770 won’t have the horsepower to play at 4K with High settings while maintaining a smooth 60 FPS, though you could always tinker around with the game’s knobs and dials to see if it might be possible. The A770 is not really a card that’s built for 4K gaming, though, even with the continued improvements Intel’s driver team has made on the software side since launch.
Overall, the requirements to play at 4K/60FPS are a bit tame compared to more demanding titles. While powerful in their own rights, the GeForce RTX 4070 and Radeon RX 7800 XT are both mid-range cards, albeit at the upper end of mid-range. We also like to see that the storage requirements are fairly light across the board, at just 20GB.
