Nvidia Claims GTX 970 Is Only Sufficient For Medium Visuals In Star Wars Battlefront

Ahead of the Star Wars Battlefront beta test which goes live today, Nvidia has weighed in on those lofty system requirements. The multiplayer shooter has a brand new Intel CPU as a minimum, with a hefty GTX 970 or R9 290 needed to hit recommended specs, along with an insane 16GB RAM.

Issued in a statement along with a new GeForce 358.50 driver release, Nvidia said “Based on our own testing, Electronic Arts’ recommendation of a GeForce GTX 970 will give gamers 60 frames per second and above at 1920x1080, with medium detail settings, in the Walker Assault’s 40-player battles. Higher detail levels will require more powerful GPUs, such as the GeForce GTX 980 and 980 Ti, as will higher resolutions.” We had presumed the recommended specs were for maxing out Star Wars Battlefront at 1080p, but it appears this isn’t the case. A GeForce GTX 970 will only be sufficient for Medium settings if targeting 60 frames per second, so gamers with an equivalent or lesser card are going to have to make some visual sacrifices.

EA and DICE have taken the rather risky decision of making it open to all, so expect an absolute flood of people when it does it go live. Ahead of then you’re going to want to make sure your rig’s in check, so if you’re a GeForce gamer then you can head on over to Nvidia’s site and grab the latest 358.50 WHQL drivers. The new driver is Game Ready optimised for the Star Wars Battlefront, so it should provide the “best possible gaming experience” from GeForce graphics cards in DICE’s shooter . Elsewhere the driver has additional GameWorks VR support, SLI support for ShadowPlay and GameStream in Windows 10, and support for OpenGL 2015 ARB extensions. The Star Wars Battlefront system requirements were surprising enough yesterday, but coupled with the news this is only apt for Medium settings at 1080p has us a little concerned.