Civ VII PC system requirements are now available!

[FXS_Sar]

Check out the full list of PC system requirements for Sid Meier's Civilization VII here. Thanks for your patience everyone!

*Edit (Oct 4): We've updated the Minimum specs and Recommended graphics preset since this was first published to better reflect expected performance.
*Edit (Dec 19): We've added minimum and recommended specs for Mac & Linux. Thank @Mort_Q and @Nikolai II for adding!
*Edit (Jan 10): Civ7 is officially Steamdeck verified.

Moderator Action: Added the Linux and Mac requirements per 19/12-24. - Nikolai II

 

[Arcaian]

Only using 20GB of storage is a refreshing change to see these days! Very nice. I appreciate that the requirements also give guidance on the resolution and expected FPS - comprehensive information

 

[moysturfurmer]

Only using 20GB of storage is a refreshing change to see these days! Very nice. I appreciate that the requirements also give guidance on the resolution and expected FPS - comprehensive information

While I agree, for reference Civ VI’s vanilla only needed 12 at launch and I believe went up to 28 as all the DLC was added. I would expect a similar increase as the years go on.

But still, miles better than the bloated 500 gig messes of Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, et al

 

[ggalindo001]

Agree -- this is nice. One question -- is 4K true 4K or upscaled 1080p gameplay and only 4K for the UI? I also presume there is widescreen support (similar to Civ 6).

 

[pokiehl]

Nothing too surprising. Generally a bit higher than I expected, but I guess that's FXS covering their backside rather than the actual minimum needed to run the game.

The specs are lower than I expected. A 1050 is positively ancient and extremely weak. I’m surprised that works for the minimum settings.

 

[AriochIV]

As if "FPS" is a system spec.

 

[Black Gate]

There's a world of difference between 1080p60 and 4K60... I'm a bit annoyed at this recent trend with games setting medium at something anyone with a desktop built in the last few years can run and high at a $10k supermachine giving no ideas for what someone's experience will be for anywhere inbetween.

Not that it really matters for a civ game, I think we all know the game will slow to a crawl near the end. Not too shocked at the requirements aside from the 32gb recommendation for high, these are reasonable.

 

[Zoeff]

I have a 5950X and I thought the 14700F is both faster and newer

EDIT: Unless Civ 7 can really spread the load across 16 cores? That would be pretty sweet.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I know it's important info, but it is a tad disappointing if it's taking the slot of a First Look today... They've come out at this time usually, right?

 

[FXS_Sar]

I know it's important info, but it is a tad disappointing if it's taking the slot of a First Look today... They've come out at this time usually, right?

The next First Look is on the way very soon!

 

[Kwami]

The physical fact is that 4k has 16x as many pixels as 1080p, and so that takes a lot more processing power to render.

4K has 4x as many pixels as 1080p.

 

[Kwami]

As expected, the game can run on pretty weak hardware if you're willing to settle for 1080p @ 30fps. That's good to see!

 

[The_J]

The more 4X, the better ^^.

On Twitter it was said that Mac and Steamdeck specs will come later.

 

[Kwami]

Nope. That's not how area scaling works... It has 4x as many horizontally and 4x as many vertically, so 16x as many in total. (Assuming the same aspect ratio, which may not be quite true for different versions of 1080p and 4k)

No. You're probably confused because 1080p refers to the vertical pixel count and "4K" refers to the horizontal pixel count. That's marketing for you!

The aspect ratio commonly called 1080p has 1920x1080 pixels for a total of 2,073,600 pixels. The aspect ratio commonly called 4K has 3840x2160 pixels for a total of 8,294,400 pixels. That's a ratio of 4x.

You can easily verify this by checking pretty much anywhere.

 

[_hero_]

There's a world of difference between 1080p60 and 4K60... I'm a bit annoyed at this recent trend with games setting medium at something anyone with a desktop built in the last few years can run and high at a $10k supermachine giving no ideas for what someone's experience will be for anywhere inbetween.

Not that it really matters for a civ game, I think we all know the game will slow to a crawl near the end. Not too shocked at the requirements aside from the 32gb recommendation for high, these are reasonable.

FYI that "$10k supermachine" costs around $2k. I bought one with those exact specs in June.

 

[ggalindo001]

Huh, you're right. I shall say my 8,294,400 ave Maria's while beating myself with the presumed assumptions stick...

I'm pretty sure I knew that once upon a time, but promptly forgot after buying a new screen. Thanks for the correction! Makes sense that they x4 the pixel count rather than make that ridiculous jump. Still, I think it's not surprising that x4 the pixels requires a substantial increase in computing power?

Unless they did what they did with Civ 6 -- which is that the UI components were rendered in true 4k resolution -- but the gameplay was simply 1080 upscaled to 4k. Which lessens the amount of computing power tremendously to render.

That is the rationale behind my ask if this is going to be truly in 4K or just simply upscaled.

Either way, it was awesome to get the specs out early and to have the level of detail here -- of course, for us to all haggle over now

 

[pokiehl]

Unless they did what they did with Civ 6 -- which is that the UI components were rendered in true 4k resolution -- but the gameplay was simply 1080 upscaled to 4k. Which lessens the amount of computing power tremendously to render.

Do you have a source on Civ 6 not being true 4k? As far as I can tell it’s 4k. I tried googling this but couldn’t find anything.

 

[ggalindo001]

Do you have a source on Civ 6 not being true 4k? As far as I can tell it’s 4k. I tried googling this but couldn’t find anything.

It is based on my own testing a few years back -- there is a 4k resolution choice in game for a 4k monitor, and the UI scales at 4K resolution, but the actual gameplay is still based on 1080p that is upscaled to 4k.

What I specifically did was take a game save and first open at 1080p and took pictures zoomed all the way in and all the way out. Then I took the same game load and put it at 4k resolution, and took pictures zoomed all the way in and all the way out. Except for the UI elements, they were identical (so I looked for things like what cities were visible on the map in both resolutions, where wonders where on the screen, etc.) The UI absolutely was scaled correctly -- but the gameplay was simply the same scaling for both. Curiously, I did the reverse as well and got the same result (started at 4k and then went to 1080p).

Then I put it against my 21:9 widescreen monitor -- same game save. In that load, I could see a lot more left and right to what I could see in both the 1080p and 4k screen shots. The UI AND the gameplay scaled correctly. That is what convinced me that the 4k resolution was simply for the UI and that gameplay was being upscaled.

I normally play on a 21:9 widescreen, so it wasn't a big deal to me -- but something I realized. And notice now a lot on broadcast sports in particular that are just being upconverted from 1080p to 4k, as opposed to being true 4k.

To make sure it wasn't something funky with my monitor, I also did the same 1080p/4k test on my laptop that has a 4k screen. Exact same thing.

Maybe there was an update a few years ago that "fixed" this -- as I haven't tested this in a few years.

 

[Trengilly]

Only using 20GB of storage is a refreshing change to see these days! Very nice. I appreciate that the requirements also give guidance on the resolution and expected FPS - comprehensive information

Just note that the storage needs to be an SSD. They aren't supporting hard disk drives anymore.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

My desktop computer has an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX 3.3 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB Hard Drive with Win 11 Pro / 64-bit and DirectX v12. So it looks like I meet all the ultra specs except the GPU but my computer has Radeon graphics integrated with the CPU. I think I am good for civ7. My computer does handle civ6 with no issues.