Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New system requirements: 150 GB available space and SSD required

oof this is a chonky game. Does this mean i need to clear out 150 gb worth of space? I'm only using a laptop

Yes. You could try to run it through an external ssd as well, that will set you around $50 - $100+ depending. Steam shouldn't have a problem with the external ssd, but it might be a bit weird. You're better off putting the game on your main hard drive and moving other files to an external drive/usb drive.

Curiously, why would an external drive be any different than an internal drive? One's in the case, one isn't, right? Is there more of a difference than that?

connection via usb vs m2/sata. Depends on your machine, external could be just as fast, and if you're using usb-c, you should be fine.

Okay, thank you. I don't much about that stuff, but I get what you're saying. It's about the connection and, I suppose, the speed going through that connection. Makes sense.

After spending the last week thinking about which PC would be the best within my budget, or if it would make sense/would be possible to upgrade my laptop to be able to play BG3, I've decided on playing via GeForce Now.

(I think I will upgrade my laptop's RAM sometime anyway. And I can do the modeling in Blender on my laptop, but use my partner's PC for rendering.
I'll have to buy a new PC eventually, but maybe this can wait until next year.)

I've tried GeForce Now yesterday, and the improvement in graphics is incredible - and, most importantly, I can finally climb ladders 😂
I've fallen in love with the game all over again.

If you have decent internet, and don't want to upgrade (which can cost thousands), yea, geforce is a great way to go for sure. I'd be using it as well if I didn't have awful internet.

My Macpro M1 has a 2TB SSD. No issues :)))))

A couple of questions:

Was the SSD requirement there at the start of EA?

What happens if someone has the EA version but no longer has (or never had) an SSD? A refund after 3 years?


Bonus question:

Has anyone come across an official explanation as to why an SSD is required?


I'm wondering what will happen on release when all the people who have no idea about the SSD requirement try to buy the game. Will there be some sort of warning or hardware check before payment is made?
Also: What if one has an SSD, e.g. used as the system drive, but doesn't want to install the game on that drive?

That’s what I had: A very small SSD as a system drive with a few other things on it. There was no way I could clear off 150 GB to fit BG3, though.😂

SSDs are pretty cheap now, and I got a 2 TB drive for $100. Now I should be set for any games I want. Starfield also requires an SSD, so it might become the standard for new games.

No. it was not.

Ask Steam or GoG. I don't know.

Bonus question:

Not official, but I think I am right about the Swap file needed for huge areas like Baldur's Gate itself.

It's the lesser of two evils - either you upgrade your RAM a whole bunch to some insane level like 64 GB or you get an SSD.

The SSD probably seemed more reasonable. This was likely the cost of not breaking Baldur's Gate up into transition areas.


Then they will be fine until they aren't, because the game will run and then you will hit the big areas and then the game will start to really slow down.

Or maybe, they locked it so you cannot play without an SSD. That will really upset people.

More and more games are requiring SSDs, tbh, so it's not really a surprise. Checking the min specs to make sure you can play a game should just be the first step, it's not a game company's fault if someone can't play a game because of hardware (barring bugs or other issues, ofc)

I just realized I may not have explained this term, and I had a few people on reddit claim that the SSD or Hard drive is "Just" a storage drive.

swap·file - a file on a hard disk used to provide space for programs which have been transferred from the processor's memory.

Basically if you exceed your system memory(RAM), the OS takes a chunk of the Hard drive memory and makes a Swap file out of it.

This is why you should always leave 10% of your hard drive vacant, because Windows especially does this all the time, and if you don't have space to make the Swap file the system will probably crash.

Since you are using a different pipe for the SWAP file, the type of hard drive you use will have a HUGE effect on performance.

150GB? o:

I thought the size of the EA version was just due to being uncompressed.

Thankfully I just found out that I can have more than one Steam library.

Also, SSD required? Why is that? It is no problem for me, but I'm curious.

Like, you can still play the game without a SSD....it'll just be a bit more sucky due to hold ups in cinematics.

Again, I don't think this is accurate.

I think they will be mostly fine until they get to Baldur's Gate and then they will bottom out on frame rates and possibly crash.

Look - Let's apply a best case scenario /worst case scenario to your advice and my (and the developer's advice)

My advice:
Best case: Player avoids massive problems when they get to the city, and is able to play the game at normal framerates with no slowdown.

Worst Case: The game plays faster, and they are out $50 for the SSD.

Your Advice:
Best Case: They have a slowdown in frame rates in heavily populated areas but are ultimately able to play. In Baldur's Gate the game slows down a lot but is otherwise OK.

Worst Case: The game is unplayable due to serious slowdown or crashes due to thrashing. Player has to now replace their Storage device with an SSD. This may or may not involve a total re-install of the OS and game (not if they know what they are doing). The whole process takes minimum of a few days, maximum of a couple weeks. Or they get frustrated and stop playing. They are angry and frustrated with the person who gave them the bad advice but don't know your name and are too depressed to look it up. They spend their remaining days an unfulfilled wreck of a human being having never finished BG3.

On their deathbed their last words are "I wish I had upgraded my hard drive..." (Beeeeeeeep)

I'm in the same boat. I actually bought 2 computers for this: first a laptop (17inch, i7, rtx2060) that I played EA on for 2 and a half years. Then decided to buy a desktop to have more headroom. One Asus ROG (Ryzen 7, RTX3070ti), a 34inch 2K curved monitor and a gaming desk later, i'm finally ready to play BG3 😏

So I am a bit tech inept!

I have the EA downloaded on steam. But havent touched it since my first playthrough back when the EA started.

My PC has two drives, an SSD and a normal HD. Steam is configured to download all my games to the HD which has a couple of TB's of space.

The SSD has about 350 GB spare so should be fine. How do I tell steam to download BG3 and only BG3 to the SSD?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Sirac

Start your Explorer to create a new folder on your SSD. (Example: D:\SteamLibrary )

Then, start your Steam Launcher, look at the upper left for [Steam] and in that menu select [Settings].
Then, go to the [Storage] settings, should be the 9. entry.
There you will see your current install destination.
Press the (+) button next to it to select the new folder.

Now, when you install a game, you should be asked where you want to install it. I advise testing it with another game first, to check if everything works.

I hope that helps.

Also, when you have made a new destination, you can press the [...] Symbol to make it your default install location, or delete it.

I think the SSD requirement is a bad thing since it will force many people into an expensive computer upgrade, and some people may not be able to afford it. Technically I fail to see why it should not be possible for Larian to make the game work for HDD but I guess it's no use complaining about that now. I have a 2TB SSD so personally I have no issues, but many will have.

Here is some advice for those of you whos computers don't meet requirements: Do not invest in an external SSD drive unless you are sure you have a USB port with a high version number. Larian will have to come out and tell people which version USB port will be minimum for running the game smoothly, but if they don't you may want to wait and then ask on the forum what works for other players. If you can afford it you should probably invest in an internal SSD drive since it will be needed for future gaming, and it will also increase performance of your PC in general. In case your hardware does not support a SSD drive you will need to upgrade your other hardware or buy a new computer. I would recommend not to be cheap about SSD drive space because you might need it in the future, for other games or whatever.