Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Minimum PC specs

I have been playing the EA version of BG3 on the following PC:

Device name DESKTOP-A2PK36L
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz 2.80 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

I note in the minimum specs for the game as outlines below we are supposed to have a SSD.

Is having played the EA any indicator that my current PC will be adequate for BG3 upon release?

MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel I5 4690 / AMD FX 8350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 970 / RX 480 (4GB+ of VRAM)
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 150 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD required

Some of the environments (eg the city of Baldur's gate) look more demanding than the areas we see in EA. Do you not have a hardrive that is an SSD? Most machines use one so that Windows loads in a vaguely reasonable timeframe.

Well what do you know. My C: drive is a SSD. It looks like its a 256GB one that has little space left. However, my D: drive has about 750GB of space free but isn't a SSD.

Technically there should be enough space if you move all your movies, music, documents over to your D: Drive as long as you have minimal stuff installed on C: You can tell windows to designate other drives for Music, Videos etc let me know if you need some guidance

Check your motherboard to see if there is space for an M.2 drive and then go get a 1TB M.2 drive from Amazon for $50

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QV692XY?psc=1&ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_ct_YK65TPAVH09ME4X3QA26

if that 256 GB is in the M.2 slot you can have it transferred to the 1Tb drive, either a computer store can do it, or you can with an external m.2 drive connector.

A SSD versus HD wont make that much of a difference for this game outside of loading times, this is not a game that is a shooter or a platformer [assuming your having a modern HD and not one of those HP Pavilions from 10 years ago, at 3200 rpm- if you do your going to have a very very bad time.] Games mostly store calls in memory, as long as you have 16GB of Ram you should be fine ... if not try to reduce page file limit in your system. DO NOT EVER INCREASE PAGE FILE LIMIT ON A HD, YOU WILL REGRET IT LOL.

This is not good info.

1. They literally state in the MINIMUM specs that you need an SSD.
2. It absolutely makes a huge difference having an SSD versus a regular hard drive - the "pipe" for an SSD is much larger and faster than for an a regular HD.
3. In the event of the system needing to create a swap file - which is a 100% chance with Bg3 - an SSD Swap file will wildly outperform a HD Swap file. The HD swap file may actually crash the system.

Also, if you have not played the full game or helped to make it why would you give advice against what the developers recommend?

Thank you everyone. It sounds like I should upgrade the SSD in my laptop and see how it goes.

SSD are pretty cheap atm.I upgraded my computer yesterday.

I have also played with a video card (GeForce GTX 1650 Ti) that is a bit under the minimum requirements but the game runs fine. My reading is that the minimum requirements are for optimal minimum performance. The EA runs okay so the minimum requirements are not the Bible, they do allow for small deviations. Or at least so it seems.

I play on a laptop as it is more convenient for travel. I think I am going to give it a shot without an SSD (I have several other non-gaming programs that I need there). If I really struggle, I might try to see if my SSD can get upgraded from 231 GB to 1TB (I vaguely remember I was given that option at purchase and that it was possible to upgrade the laptop at a later point; I hope I am not wrong). For now I would not bother, though. I am a very casual gamer and I don't usually need so much memory.

I naively expected the requirements to slightly go down from EA (you know optimization and stuff) but it is what it is, so I guess I will work with what I have.

Well at least you admit it, but you should know that the specs have gone UP since the game was in EA not down.

And look, maybe your framerates will just bottom out in Baldur's Gate and you will be slugging along and Larian wants to be able to say "Hey, we said you need an SSD" - because Larian takes framerates REALLY seriously.

But you are opening the door for a crash to occur.

If this is what I think it is your only other option is to increase your laptop RAM to 64-128 GB so you can just load the entire game into memory. Wheee!

I really doubt they're going to lower the official requirements from the current EA listing. I do expect that further optimization will happen but it's more likely that they won't change the requirements so much as just offer a bit more performance for minimum-spec and possibly even lower-spec systems. Plus, GPU and CPU performance can offset each other so if your GPU is slightly below spec but your CPU is better than required the game will likely run fine at lower settings. More RAM will also be helpful.

As for upgrading your upgrading your laptop, it sounds like you have both an SSD and an HDD installed. That being the case, it may be easier and cheaper to replace the HDD with an SSD than replace your existing SSD especially if you have the OS on it. A 500GB SATA SSD that fits in a laptop drive bay only costs about $20-25 US, so it's not that big an expenditure.

Sarcasm aside other than the SSD, is there anything else that was added as a requirement? I think the EA requirements and the new requirements are for the rest identical. I am a worried about my video card in particular as it is the Achilles' heel of my laptop. Unlike the SSD, I can't change this one and I have no plans for buying a new laptop in the next two years.

As for crashes, I've had those very rarely and never with this game in EA. I will really see how it goes and if it really needed, I guess I will search how to upgrade the C: driver memory on my laptop. After all, I will have my save files and the game might run just fine until the last chapter where the big city is introduced. But I really do not want to bother with that at the time being.

Minimum specs does not mean it won't run on a HD, it just means you will have a miserable time as your performance won't run to the level where the devs consider the game enjoyable. This specific borderline will vary from developer to developer, as an example ubisoft for example, minimum requirements are for playing the game at 10fps it seems as you need way higher then they require.

HD vs SSD only changes load times, I done research and I not seen a single example where a game would hard not work because it was on a HD over an ssd. Albeit being on a ssd will improve performance from 30-100% load times on games.

That does remind me when I was using my old subpar laptop on Pathfinder Kingmaker, which was notorious with its loading times. Pillars of Eternity 2 was also loading slowly. I do remember occasionally making a tea while waiting to load. Crazy memories.

But yeah, I can't really tell before I try the full version of BG3 on my current laptop.

You are absolutely right, it will run...initially!

The problem is going to start to occur when you get to the higher traffic areas and specifically Baldur's Gate the City. Then the performance is going to go right into the toilet if you don't have an SSD or a LOT of RAM - like 64GB to 128GB.

And then you will likely be looking at crashes, de-syncs, and possible rubber banding. God forbid you try to play multiplayer like that.

I think they said get an SSD because that's going to be easier and less expensive than trying to boost your RAM to 64 GB - also that would look crazy.