What is the hardest PC game to run?
What is the hardest PC game to run? Let's find out
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We’ve been seeing a steady increase in hardware requirements for triple-A PC gaming over these past couple of years. With technologies like ray tracing making their way into the mainstream, games are more demanding than ever. Today, we’re finding out – what is the hardest PC game to run?
Now Read: CPU-intensive games
The hardest PC game to run
There is no shortage of resource-intensive triple-A games on the market, so we have a ton of options to choose between here. Titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, RDR2, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are all known to be very demanding, hardware-wise.
For this article, we’ll be focusing on the most demanding game exclusively. And that would be the latest release from Warner Brother’s – Hogwarts Legacy.
Hogwarts Legacy
If you’re an avid gamer who’s been keeping up with the latest in the industry, you’re probably already heard a thing or two about this title. Hogwarts Legacy was first announced in 2022 and finally made its much-anticipated release in February 2023.
The game has some interesting hardware requirements. The developers have been very comprehensive in laying out exactly what hardware is appropriate for gameplay at various resolutions and settings. You can find the full requirements here.
For gameplay at 4K, 60FPS, and maxed-out visual settings, the devs recommend the following hardware:
- CPU: Core i7-10700K / Ryzen 7 5800X.
- GPU: RTX 3090 Ti / RX 7900 XT
- RAM: 32 GB
- Storage: 85 GB SSD
What’s interesting is that these recommendations are made with the assumption that DLSS or FSR is always enabled, which isn’t explicitly stated on the web page.
You can’t hit a stable 60FPS on 4K without upscaling, even with the best GPU around today – the RTX 4090. This just goes to show you how incredibly demanding Hogwarts Legacy is, graphically. The game is quite CPU-intensive as well, but modern processors are overpowered, so you’ll always be GPU-bound on a system with components that were selected with compatibility in mind.
You could also argue that Hogwarts Legacy isn’t very well optimized by the developers, or that performance is limited severely by the use of the anti-piracy software Denuvo (the game ended up being cracked and pirated anyway).
Still, regardless of the why, Hogwarts Legacy is currently the most demanding game you can on PC. Gamers who don’t have the very best hardware will have to make some compromises in resolution and visual settings.
But – if you’re clever about optimizing for performance – it is possible to see decent framerates on older hardware without too much of a loss in visual fidelity. You’re practically forced to use upscaling, though – either DLSS or FSR 2.0, depending on your brand of GPU.
Having the latest drivers is essential, as the game shows some problems with the latest hardware at launch. Most of these problems were addressed by driver updates.
Hogwarts Legacy is also one of the very few games that benefit noticeably from being run on a system with more than 16GB of RAM. which has long been considered more than enough for high-end gaming. Although 16GB is enough to offer a decent experience, you need more for maxed-out settings.
