Elden Ring runs fine on 8GB of RAM and more - PC performance testing live blog

Elden Ring comes out later tonight on PC, but as it's the first FromSoftware game to come out on modern hardware, it begs the question of whether or not your PC can even run it. Luckily, I have access to a ton of hardware and am going to test it on a broad range of graphics cards. 

And, as a bit of a spoiler, it's actually a pretty easy game to run, though it does have occasional frame drops, especially when going into new areas for the first time. This slight performance issue is definitely not enough to sour a fantastic game, though. 

Started out with a Ryzen 3 3300X, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. It crashed. Loaded it up with 12GB of RAM, and it crashed again! Turns out the GTX 1050 Ti just can't handle the game at all, as it loads fine with the barely-more-powerful GTX 1650. 

That GPU will be good for 1080p low settings. If you want to go up to 1080p High, you're going to need to have at least a GTX 1660 or equivalent - think an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or 980. An AMD Radeon RX 580 should be sufficient, too. 

What's really awesome, though, is that loading Elden Ring up with 8GB of RAM and a GTX 1650 works fine. You don't actually need the 12GB of RAM listed on the system requirements - though I do still recommend it.

The GTX 1050 Ti sure was cute though!! (Image credit: Future)

Upgrading to the RTX 2060 did the trick. The GTX 1660 Super dropped to like 50-55 fps when going outside, which is not terrible but a game like Elden Ring is all about tight timing, and you don't want to miss a single frame. 

However, the same problem that the GTX 1660 Super faced, the RTX 2060 faced at 1440p High. Runs fine indoors and in dungeons, but outdoors, it drops to around 55 fps. Still looks and plays fine, but probably best to just stay at Medium, or drop to 1080p with the RTX 2060. 

With the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, you can get a solid 60 fps at 1440p with maximum settings. This makes it the perfect 1440p graphics card for this game, which means the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 should stay around this level too - but we'll have to see about that a bit later. 

OK I have peed. More elden ring pic.twitter.com/eP94R3q34fFebruary 24, 2022

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Ok, the RTX 2070 is absolutely not good enough for 4K medium settings. Drops to like 45 fps in outdoor areas, and that does not feel good in this game. It instead feels like playing Bloodborne, which might be nostalgic for you (me too), but a smooth 60 fps is much better, obviously.

(Image credit: Future)

I decided to do the RTX 3070 next, because I'm really not in the mood to test every single RTX 2000 card just to have to move to the 3000 cards anyways. 

The RTX 3070 is fine for 4K high settings, you'll get a pretty solid 60 fps at all times. Though it does have the same random frame drops as every other card I've tested. I'm going to have to jump to AMD cards in a second to see if that problem is fixed there. 

Moving up to Maximum Settings though, the framerate chugs along at the mid-to-high 40s. I'd keep the settings around High if you're on the RTX 3070 (or even the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.) RTX 3080 is probably going to be the answer for 4K Max @ 60 fps. Time to see!