Crimson Desert system requirements

The Crimson Desert system requirements are surprisingly accessible for the most part, with CPU and GPU specs being quite modest. However, with 16GB of RAM as a minimum and over 130GB of SSD storage space required, the currently high prices for these parts might mean an expensive upgrade to get this game running for anyone whose gaming PC is lacking in these areas. Thankfully, Pearl Abyss has also provided comprehensive system requirements for High and Ultra specs, as well as Xbox Ally performance expectations, too.

It's no surprise to see that you won't need the very best graphics card to at least run Crimson Desert, and it's still nice to see just how modest its entry-level GPU requirement is. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is nearly ten years old and was only a mid-range card at the time of its launch, yet it will still allow you to play this huge, open-world adventure, even if it looks like a potato.

Here are the Crimson Desert system requirements for PC:

The Crimson Desert minimum requirements call for a GTX 1060 or the considerably more modern AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, with no mention made of which Intel Arc GPUs will be enough to play the game. However, we'd expect all of Intel's Arc cards to be powerful enough to at least fire up the game, as they're relatively modern. For CPUs, requirements are just as modest, with only an AMD Ryzen 5 2600X or Intel Core i5 8500 needed, both of which are chips that are well over five years old.

The two potential sticking points for older systems, though, are that this game requires 16GB of RAM and the Crimson Desert download size is 150GB. We've long recommended at least 16GB of RAM, and for many years, that would have been a cheap upgrade, but right now, memory prices are incredibly high, so if you're stuck on 8GB, you might be facing an expensive upgrade to play this title.

SSDs have risen in price, too, though not by as much as RAM. If you can, we'd definitely recommend uninstalling some other games to make room on your current drive, rather than pay the currently inflated prices for an SSD upgrade. That said, while the best SSDs for gaming are expensive at the moment, you can still get reasonably affordable upgrades, such as this 500GB Crucial P310 drive. It's not the fastest, but it's only $79.99 and is fine for just storing your game library.

As for the Crimson Desert recommended specs, these jump up to demanding an AMD Radeon 6700 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080, both of which are quite powerful cards. With this step up, you get a big jump in performance, though. While the minimum tier gets you just 30fps at 1080p with upscaling, the recommended spec will let you hit 1080p at 60fps or even play at 4k/30fps.

In terms of CPUs, RAM, and storage, it's only the former that rises a little with the recommended specs, but not by much. If you have a chip more powerful than the nearly five-year-old AMD Ryzen 5 5600 or Intel Core i5 11600K, you'll be fine.

When it comes to High and Ultra tier requirements, GPU expectations again jump up, with an RTX 4070 or RX 7700 XT needed for the former and an RTX 5070 Ti or RX 9070 XT needed for Ultra performance. These GPUs will unlock 1440p at 60fps or 4k at 60fps levels of perforamnce, respectively, though.

CPU requirements jump up at this tier, too, though they're still reasonably modest options. The Intel Core i5-12600K and 13600K are old, mid-range options, as are the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and Ryzen 7 7700X. I also suspect you won't strictly need this to get close to the performance levels outlined above - the more powerful GPU will be the most essential upgrade.

As for handheld performance, we still don't have a definitive answer to the question, "Can you play Crimson Desert on the Steam Deck?" However, Pearl Abyss has outlined performance expectations for the ROG Xbox Ally X and lower-spec Xbox Ally.

On the latter, you'll be able to get 40fps at 720p using FSR 3 frame generation, while 1080p at 30fps can be achieved on the more powerful Xbox Ally X. Expect the Steam Deck to have performance in line with the Xbox Ally tier, with the game being playable at 720p, assuming it plays at all on SteamOS, which is yet to be confirmed.