Elder Scrolls Online System Requirements and Recommended Specs

Elves, orcs and… cat people… will be populating the continent of Tamriel when the Elder Scrolls Online launches on April 4th.

Will your PC be equally prepared for pillaging Daedric ruins and ambushing innocent mud crabs? Let’s check out the system requirements for running the game on minimum settings, intermediate settings, maximum settings at 1080p resolution, and maximum settings at 4K resolution or higher framerates.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

While the minimum specs might not make it pretty, the Elder Scrolls Online is designed to run on a wide spectrum of builds. Here’s what developer Bethesda lists as the most basic requirements:

CPU: Dual Core 2.0 GHz or equivalent

RAM: 2GB

GPU: DirectX 9 with 512MB VRAM

Components in this range are extremely cheap and generally outdated by current standards, but on release day, you should be able to run the game on minimum settings with a rig below the current “Minimum” tier on the Logical Increments parts list.

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INTERMEDIATE SETTINGS

If you want to run Elder Scrolls Online at a decent framerate and resolution on moderate settings, we would recommend using a build that’s at least comparable to the current “Modest” or “Fair” tiers on the parts list. These components are a good example:

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750 or Intel Pentium G3220

RAM: 4GB

GPU: Direct X 11 with 1 GB of VRAM, like a Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750

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MAX SETTINGS (at 1080p, 60fps)

But what if you want to experience the game on maximum settings, the way it’s meant to be played? Let’s see what the game needs to play on full settings, assuming a target resolution of 1080p at 60 frames per second.

CPU: AMD FX-8350 8-Core or Intel i5 4570 Quad Core

RAM: 8GB

GPU: DirectX 11 with 2GB VRAM, like a Radeon R9 270X or GeForce GTX 760

Since the Elder Scrolls Online is an MMORPG with a big range of environments and an occasional high numbers of players on the screen, it will demand a considerable amount of power to run at max settings with a solid framerate. These specs fall in around the Superb and Excellent tiers on the parts list.

Keep in mind that these specs are meant to provide a frame of reference for achieving maximum settings assuming a target of 1080p at 60 frames per second. Since this is an MMORPG that can demand more of your system at certain times, you might see framerate drops below 60 FPS even with these components.

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MAXIMUM SETTINGS (4K resolution or higher framerates at 1080p/1440 resolution)

For enthusiasts with monitors that support resolutions above 1080p, or refresh rates that can get you 120FPS or higher, you might be looking for systems even better performance levels. To run the game on max settings at higher resolutions and framerates, we recommend checking the parts list at the “Outstanding” level and above.

For a frame of reference, here’s what we recommend for running Elder Scrolls Online at 4K resolution and around 45 FPS:

CPU: Intel i5-4670K or Intel i7-4770K

RAM: 16GB

GPU: Geforce GTX 780

These components can be found around the “Exceptional” and “Enthusiast” tiers. You can always go with the “Extremist” and “Monstrous” tiers to take the game even further.

Check the parts list at logicalincrements.com for all the best components at any budget. And until next time, show those mud crabs some mercy.

Amazon links to buy Elder Scrolls Online game download:
Imperial Edition
Standard Edition

(images courtesy of elderscrollsonline.com)