The highly-anticipated release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is almost here. The game looks to deliver a cinematic experience with stunning visuals, intricate puzzles, and a gripping story, making for one of the best single-player experiences of the year. However, with the release of a new AAA comes the realization that it’s probably going to be difficult to run.
System requirements for the Great Circle have now been published and they reveal that the game isn’t going to be smooth sailing for a lot of systems. In fact, it seems to lock out entire generations of PC gamers due to one key requirement: ray tracing. We have already seen games with plenty of reliance on ray tracing and path tracing, but these specs explicitly list “GPU Hardware Ray Tracing” as a requirement – essentially locking anyone with an older GTX graphics card out.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle system requirements
As published by Bethesda in a recent blog post, we can now see the system requirements. Looking at the very minimum requirements, without full ray tracing, you’ll need at least an RTX 2060 Super (8GB), RX 6600 (8GB), or Intel’s Arc A580 – which just got a successor in the B580 announced yesterday. Keep in mind that this is targeting 1080p low settings for 60 FPS.
System requirements without full ray tracing
| Minimum | Recommended | Ultra | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating System | 64-bit Windows 10 | 64-bit Windows 10 | 64-bit Windows 10 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | Intel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700 | Intel Core i9-13900K / AMD Ryzen 9 7900X |
| Memory | 16 GB RAM | 32 GB RAM | 32 GB RAM |
| GPU | RTX 2060 Super (8GB) / RX 6600 (8GB) / Arc A580 | RTX 3080 Ti (12GB) / RX 7700 XT (12GB) | RTX 4080 (16GB) / RX 7900 XT (20GB) |
| Storage | 120 GB (SSD required) | 120 GB (SSD required) | 120 GB (SSD required) |
| Target performance | Low preset, 1080p, 60 FPS | High preset, 1440p, 60 FPS | Ultra preset, 4K, 50 FPS |
Many people are still using the popular GTX 16 series or even the 10 series in an entry-level system. So, while these generations have enjoyed plenty of usage, the time has finally come to upgrade if you want to continue playing AAA games (at least in the case of Indiana Jones). As described by Nvidia, RTX cards have dedicated ray-tracing hardware, whereas GTX does the relevant calculations via shader cores, a shared resource.
System requirements with full ray tracing
| Minimum | Recommended | Ultra | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating System | 64-bit Windows 10 | 64-bit Windows 10 | 64-bit Windows 10 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | Intel Core i7-12700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700 | Intel Core i9-13900K / AMD Ryzen 9 7900X |
| Memory | 16 GB RAM | 32 GB RAM | 32 GB RAM |
| GPU | RTX 4070 (12GB) | RTX 4080 (16GB) | RTX 4090 (24GB) |
| Storage | 120 GB (SSD required) | 120 GB (SSD required) | 120 GB (SSD required) |
| Target performance | Low preset, 1080p, 60 FPS, full ray tracing (upscaled + FG) | High preset, 1440p, 60 FPS, full ray tracing (upscaled + FG) | Ultra preset, 4K, 60 FPS, full ray tracing (upscaled + FG) |
Upscaling is pretty much a requirement if you want full ray tracing
As you’ll notice from the full ray tracing requirements above, you’re going to need one of the high-end RTX 40 series GPUs to play the game at 60 FPS at your desired resolution, and that’s with upscaling included. The game is shipping with DLSS 3.5 and full tracing support, and is even patterned with Nvidia for a GeForce RTX 40-series bundle.
All three performance targets use DLSS frame generation with DLSS quality, balanced, and performance modes for minimum, recommended, and ultra requirements, respectively. And again, these are targeting just 60 FPS – so we don’t expect the game to run well at all without upscaling if you want to utilize full ray tracing.
