Revamped Skyrim’s system requirements could spell trouble for older PCs

Bethesda has announced that the remastered version of Skyrim which is due out later this month has gone gold, while also revealing the PC system  requirements for the game.

Unsurprisingly,  Skyrim Special Edition is a good deal more demanding than the original,  which is five years old now (can you believe?), due to the amount of  tweaking done to the visuals to bring the game up-to-date.

The minimum system requirements specify at least an Intel Core i5-750  (2.66GHz quad-core) processor or AMD Phenom II X4-945, with 8GB of system RAM. For the graphics card you’ll need at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 with 1GB of video memory, or an AMD HD 7870 2GB.

The recommended spec cranks things up to an Intel Core i5-2400 or AMD  FX-8320, backed up by an Nvidia GTX 780 graphics card with 3GB on-board, or a Radeon R9 290 4GB. The amount of system memory stays the same as the minimum requirements, at 8GB.

The game is supported by the 64-bit versions of Windows 7, 8.1, and Windows 10, plus you’ll need 12GB of free space on your drive for the installation.

Visual finery

Skyrim Special Edition’s visual enhancements include extra content and remastered art, refreshed effects, volumetric lighting, dynamic depth of field and new snow and water shaders. They're joined by other bits and pieces of polish, some of which have been borrowed from Fallout 4’s improvements  to the graphics engine (Creation Engine).

The remastered Skyrim for PC is out on October 28 – alongside the PS4 and Xbox One versions – and the good news is that those Steam users who  bought the original game and all of the Skyrim DLC will get the Special Edition given to them for free.

Note that the console versions have a further big addition coming to them in that they will support mods – community crafted add-ons – just like the PC version.

• Is it about to land in our list of best PC games?