Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is finally out on PC, and it’s already going down a storm thanks to a number of notable improvements across the board.

Luckily for those who may have older GPUs, but still want to play the game, the minimum requirements are quite accessible. KCD 2 is listed as only needing a GTX 1060 or RX 580, in fact. This had me fairly intrigued though…

We usually put the latest games to the test with some of the latest cards to see how they perform at their best, but we don’t often test the minimum requirements. It just so happens that we have a GTX 1060 in the office, so we set up our testing rig to see how KCD2 actually performs when using the minimum requirement GPU.

GTX 1060 performance in KCD2

I put the GTX 1060 through our testing lab giving it the best shot and extracting the most performance out of it. Pairing it up with a 9800X3D on the AM5 platform with 32GB of DDR5 memory clocked at 6800MT/s, it was definitely up to the GPU to get the performance up there.

But it wasn’t enough to get what most would consider a playable framerate. I initially booted the game into 4K as that’s what was already set, and it immediately became apparent that it wasn’t going to manage that. So, changing the resolution to 1080p, but still with ultra quality, I was still surprised at how bad it was to play. With a performance graph below, you can see the frame rates the 1060 achieved across different qualities and upscaling.

Across the different presets, the 1060 only achieves an average of 20 FPS on ultra with many frame drops – unfortunately a very unpleasant experience. Even dropping those settings down to low only nets you around 14 FPS on average as it jumps to 34 with the incremental increases between.

Even then, that’s more like console gaming framerates. You at least want 60 FPS to enjoy a better gaming experience on PC. This is only possible by cranking on upscaling and rendering at a lower resolution to then create the frames by upscaling to your actual resolution.

For the GTX 1060, it’s beyond the cut-off for being supported by even the initial DLSS release as it’s not an RTX graphics card. So it’s only AMD’s FSR implementation that you can get use out of, with three different steps available.

There, the quality and balanced mode nearly double the framerate from the 34 average on low all the way up to 64. It seems not to change between the two modes for some reason, but then the performance mode increases it even further. With a 73 FPS average and lows above 60, it’s definitely a lot better experience in gaming.

Visuals and quality

Of course, there are some detriments to using upscaling compared to native. As the game is now rendered at lower resolutions (quality means 720p, balanced 635p, and performance 540p), you get a hit on the visual quality.

In Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 with the GTX 1060, it’s not that immediately obvious. I put together a quick comparison video between the different modes. Even though it might be hard to tell from it, the low quality and performance FSR definitely smooths everything out and loses plenty of details.

However, it definitely makes it playable and a lot smoother. The 60 FPS compared to 30 is quite the contrast and immediately makes it all the better to actually play and enjoy it. In my opinion, it’s worth the trade-off, as it still looks ok enough. You might not see every piece of grass or lose depth in the path, but it still shows off the general great looks and gives your GPU a chance to hold up for new games to this day.

It lets you enjoy the game even on aging hardware, where there’s still a decent amount of gamers using it if Steam’s data is anything to go by. So, until you can upgrade to something newer, FSR is seemingly the saving grace for you to get the most out of it.

Final word

Overall, although Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 says you need a minimum of a GTX 1060, it’s definitely a struggle to get a good experience out of it. Having to configure the best settings for it and heavily relying on upscaling, the quality does take a beating.

Considering KCD2 recommends an RTX 4070 tier GPU, at least it is playable, and in an age where the minimum requirements are starting to need ray tracing, like Indian Jones and the Great Circle, with plenty of VRAM, it might be the last time any major games will support so many previous generations.

About the Author

Sebastian Kozlowski

With a fascination for technology and games, Seb is a tech writer with a focus on hardware and deals. He is also the primary tester and reviewer at BGFG and PCGuide.