16GB of RAM, SSD minimum requirements for Squadron 42

[Carfax83]

CIG just released the minimum requirements for Squadron 42, their upcoming single player title from the Star Citizen Universe.

You will need a minimum of 16GB or RAM, and an SSD is strongly recommended. I honestly can't say I'm too surprised by this, as there's never been a game with the size and scope of Star Citizen. And although Squadron 42 is the single player version, it will still have the same assets as the former, just in a more limited manner. Those assets might be higher quality as well, as is usually the case with the single player campaigns of multiplayer titles.

This game is going to hammer midrange rigs, much like Assassins' Creed Origins does, but even more so due to how much data being constantly streamed and decompressed from storage. I predict this game (and Star Citizen) will be a major factor behind system upgrades when it launches.

This actually might be the first title (at least that I'm aware of) where the developer optimizes the streaming algorithm for SSDs rather than HDDs.

Field – Requirement
OS: Windows 7 (64bit) with Service Pack 1, Windows 8 (64bit), Windows 10 – Anniversary Update (64bit)
GPU: DirectX 11 Graphics Card with 2GB RAM (4GB strongly recommended)
CPU: Quad Core CPU
RAM: 16GB+
Drive: SSD strongly recommended

 

[Elixer]

There is no logical reason for requiring so much RAM. It must be very unoptomized.
I see they also want 2GB as minimum VRAM? It is gonna be a chug fest.

Even if they are converting 4K assets on the fly (which would be really stupid), they have some serious issues with the game engine that they are hiding by using up that much RAM.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's the minimum, not the recommended specs?

 

[Carfax83]

There is no logical reason for requiring so much RAM. It must be very unoptomized.
I see they also want 2GB as minimum VRAM? It is gonna be a chug fest.

Even if they are converting 4K assets on the fly (which would be really stupid), they have some serious issues with the game engine that they are hiding by using up that much RAM.

It seems excessive until you remember that the game has to be able to stream planet sized objects, and probably some very large futuristic cities. Also, the less VRAM you have, the more RAM you need to be able to quickly swap assets in and out of VRAM.

With 8GB of VRAM, I'm sure the game will use less RAM though. This game will hopefully launch with the Volta class GPUs, and those will come furnished with up to 16GB of VRAM.

 

[Carfax83]

That's the minimum, not the recommended specs?

Yep. Bring it on I say, my rig is ready

 

[UsandThem]

Now is the perfect time to require that amount of RAM, because it is SO cheap.

 

[Elixer]

It seems excessive until you remember that the game has to be able to stream planet sized objects, and probably some very large futuristic cities. Also, the less VRAM you have, the more RAM you need to be able to quickly swap assets in and out of VRAM.

That isn't how it normally works though.
While it may be planet sized or very detailed cities, it shouldn't load more than a chunk at a time, and with today's compression tech & LOD, you can basically have 1GB of geometry shrunk down to a few hundred megs.

This is why I am waiting to see them actually ship something out to see what exactly they are doing that requires so much RAM.

 

[Carfax83]

That isn't how it normally works though.
While it may be planet sized or very detailed cities, it shouldn't load more than a chunk at a time, and with today's compression tech & LOD, you can basically have 1GB of geometry shrunk down to a few hundred megs.

Yeah, but if you have less VRAM, say 2GB, the assets will constantly have to be swapped between VRAM and RAM. As I said before, RAM helps when you have less VRAM because the assets can be swapped out faster. Techspot actually did an article about this recently, but their website is down for some reason otherwise I would link to it.

This is why I am waiting to see them actually ship something out to see what exactly they are doing that requires so much RAM.

Here is an hour of pre alpha footage from Squadron 42:

To be honest, this game (and Star Citizen) are the first of their kind. No game has ever been as large and as detailed as these games, with a focus on realism. They've already demoed City Planets a la Bladerunner. That's pretty amazing, to have that kind of visual fidelity on that kind of scale. Like I said, it's never been done before.

So the system requirements are understandably going to much higher than for any other games. With the game using Vulkan, I wouldn't be surprised if it can fully utilize a Intel 7960x!

 

[aigomorla]

You dont need 16GB of ram, because windows has something called a PAGED FILE.

and on a SSD, that page file isnt that bad.

No offense, but CIG has to be about the worst a gaming company it can get, even more so then EA, and UBISoft.

 

[Carfax83]

You dont need 16GB of ram, because windows has something called a PAGED FILE.

and on a SSD, that page file isnt that bad.

Yeah but who wants a game to constantly be hitting page faults? Even on an SSD that will lead to massive stuttering and frame latency spikes.

No offense, but CIG has to be about the worst a gaming company it can get, even more so then EA, and UBISoft.

Well personally I won't be giving them any of my money until their game actually releases. But so far, I'm impressed with what I've seen.