Minimum system requirements

[KaniSatha]

As a real-life space exploration buff I am sooooo excited for this game and have been following it avidly since it was first revealed. This game would be the first game I have ever pre-ordered, if not for the fact of its minimum system requirements. My Alienware desktop has an i5 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and the GTX 980 video card. No SSD. To those of you who are knowledgeable about system requirements I ask, will I be able to run this game? Thanks in advance.

[supergoyo77]

I'm sorry friend, I think you won't be able to and if or if you will have to update it or buy a new pc.

[wesnef]

Just looking at the GPU, the GTX 980 is substantially weaker than the 5700/1070Ti. And only has 4GB of VRAM. That's bad.

[Daedrius]

Yeah, I'd say it's time to upgrade. That GPU model alone is 9 years old.

[Engels78]

Just buy some AMD Ryzen 3600x, it's quite cheap (used for like 70$), and you are good to go! Motherboard is also like 70$ for X370 used one... Memory DDR4 16GB for 50$... SSD 256GB like 15$!!!

[patrick68794]

Just stream it with game pass if you have decent internet. You'll have a more consistent experience and won't have to spend a bunch of money to buy or build a new PC

[AdahnGorion]

If you wanna play modern AAA titles, you are in for a time to upgrade your entire system, you wont be able to run the game even with those specs.. sorry.

[PopinFRESH]

Given your system is an Alienware, I'm assuming your Core i5 is generationally inline with the GeForce GTX 980. e.g. a Core i5-4670 or Core i5-4670K.

Both that CPU and the GPU are well below the minimum system requirements for Starfield, and will be for most new AAA games being launched in 2023 and onward.

If you're not comfortable building your own PC, I would suggest there are far better pre-built systems than Alienware. If you plan on getting a new PC for Starfield I'd recommend posting in the Hardware & Operating Systems discussion forum for help with components and finding a decent System Integrator.

[japp_02]

We have the store page info and nothing more to give you. No SSD means no game start. 6GB VRAM instead of 8 may start the game, but starting and playing are 2 different beasts. My guess is that if you have a super fast CPU then a GPU with 6GB like the GTX 1660ti may be enough (but thats' not true, right? If it was I would highly question your computer system setup anyway), but how can I be right if I didn't play the game yet...We need to wait for reviewers once the game is out.

[anynamewilldo]

Why preorder or even buy it at first? It will be on Game Pass and if you start now to build up reward points you can play it for free on release day. Buy it later if you want.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by japp_02:

No SSD means no game start.

Pretty sure it'll just mean really lousy loading, both loading screens & textures/etc being streamed in as you wander around, lots of stutter & pop-in, etc - a really poor & inadequate experience. Not sure how you'd even program a game to detect the storage type and fail to run.

[KaniSatha]

Thank you all. You've all been most helpful.
Yes I've been aware it is probably time to refresh my PC. It's been 8 years, and that has been the average lifespan for my PCs thus far. And yes, I'm not at all knowledgeable enough to build my own PC, and want to be able to go to an online store and buy pre-built, though maybe with a little customization of components. All my PCs have been from Dell, and that's what I've typically done. And I'm not necessarily looking for cheap. I'm not a wealthy person by any means, but as a professional in my 50's with a good job I can afford a good machine.
The issue for me always is the pain of porting all my files and apps from my current machine to the new one. That's what deters me from getting a new machine, as I find that a hugely time-consuming pain-in-the-ass chore. Any recommendations?

[HeyYou]

Originally posted by KaniSatha:

Thank you all. You've all been most helpful.
Yes I've been aware it is probably time to refresh my PC. It's been 8 years, and that has been the average lifespan for my PCs thus far. And yes, I'm not at all knowledgeable enough to build my own PC, and want to be able to go to an online store and buy pre-built, though maybe with a little customization of components. All my PCs have been from Dell, and that's what I've typically done. And I'm not necessarily looking for cheap. I'm not a wealthy person by any means, but as a professional in my 50's with a good job I can afford a good machine.
The issue for me always is the pain of porting all my files and apps from my current machine to the new one. That's what deters me from getting a new machine, as I find that a hugely time-consuming pain-in-the-ass chore. Any recommendations?

Find a local PC shop that will do that for you. I do that at work on almost a daily basis. Granted, we charge 90 bucks for that particular service..... :) But, we get ALL of your data. (but, not installed programs, with a few minor exceptions.)

[AdahnGorion]

Originally posted by KaniSatha:

Thank you all. You've all been most helpful.
Yes I've been aware it is probably time to refresh my PC. It's been 8 years, and that has been the average lifespan for my PCs thus far. And yes, I'm not at all knowledgeable enough to build my own PC, and want to be able to go to an online store and buy pre-built, though maybe with a little customization of components. All my PCs have been from Dell, and that's what I've typically done. And I'm not necessarily looking for cheap. I'm not a wealthy person by any means, but as a professional in my 50's with a good job I can afford a good machine.
The issue for me always is the pain of porting all my files and apps from my current machine to the new one. That's what deters me from getting a new machine, as I find that a hugely time-consuming pain-in-the-ass chore. Any recommendations?

There are plenty of places (also online) that will let you customize your own prebuild and then get them to build it for you (without much extra cost overall) it is a bit more limiting than doing all yourself, but its a perfectly fine way to get a new machine.

[Tomatokek]

nope. you are running a dinosaur there. need a full upgrade.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Al Abaster:

Originally posted by KaniSatha:

No SSD. To those of you who are knowledgeable about system requirements I ask, will I be able to run this game? Thanks in advance.

You will absolutely be able to install and run the game from a mechanical hard drive. It remains to be seen if it negatively impacts performance to any great degree...

We don't actually know this as of yet, however, I'd not expect Bethesda Game Studios to prevent installation / "trying to play" on mechanical disks.

Originally posted by wesnef:

Originally posted by japp_02:

No SSD means no game start.

...Not sure how you'd even program a game to detect the storage type and fail to run.

There are several methods they could employ to actually do this, however, as noted above I'd be very surprised if BGS did so. Mechanical disks have a much different IO latency and substantially lower IOPS than flash storage. Even very high-end 15K SAS disks have substantially lower IOPS than a cheap low-end SSD. So they could just do a performance test by writing a dummy file to the install path and then reading that file back while measuring the IO performance.

Regardless, I tend to think BGS would find doing any method of "verification" a waste of engineering resources as they've already provided the customer guidance via the minimum specifications. If you happen to have an issue and try to ask for support from BGS they are going to ask you for your specs / dxdiag / sysinfo and then tell you "your issue is you don't meet the system requirements".