Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s release is just around the corner, and many are eagerly waiting for it. The system requirements for the game were revealed recently, which mention that you need at least an RTX 2060 Super or a similar GPU as a minimum while playing at 1080p. However, while the game promises an exciting adventure, it also comes with a key requirement, GPU hardware ray tracing, and this is relatively bad news for Steam Deck users.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has a high barrier to entry
Ray tracing is a technology that makes lighting and reflections in games much more realistic – in real time – but it requires more powerful hardware. The problem is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle lists GPU hardware ray tracing as a required feature. This means if you’re using an older graphics card, such as something from Nvidia’s GTX series, you’re out of luck. On top of that, to run the game on 1080p low settings at 60 FPS, you’ll need at least one of the following:
- Nvidia RTX 2060 Super (8GB)
- AMD RX 6600 (8GB)
- Intel Arc A580
It is worth mentioning while the Steam Deck does indeed have hardware ray tracing support via its custom RDNA 2 GPU, we don’t expect it to make up for the high-end system requirements. The Steam Deck’s performance is said to be more closely aligned to something like the GTX 1050 Ti, or GTX 1650 at a stretch.
And if you want the full ray tracing experience, you’ll need a much more powerful GPU. The game’s ray tracing requirements suggest that you’ll need one of the high-end RTX 40 series cards to hit 60 FPS at your preferred resolution, and that’s with upscaling enabled.
For Steam Deck owners, this is bad news. While the handheld can run most games smoothly, it isn’t built to run demanding games like this one. As such, the handheld is unlikely to run the game smoothly, though we’re keen to see how well it performs once it releases December 6th (for those who bought the Premium Edition with 3-day early access).
Streaming might be the only way
It seems likely that the best option for Steam Deck users will be to stream the game from a PC. Xbox Cloud Gaming is a good choice, especially since the game will be available on Game Pass on day one. The game will also be available to stream via Nvidia GeForce Now, as detailed in this blog post. And yes, in case you were wondering, GFN does work on the Deck – and Nvidia actually made it easier to stream games directly earlier this year.
