Is your PC ready for Unreal Engine 5? System requirements guide (2024)

Unreal Engine 5 is currently the most powerful software for creating real-time 3D environments. But does your computer meet the minimum and recommended system requirements?

The software is mostly utilized as a game engine, but it is also used in architecture, cinema and television, live events, animation, and even the automobile sector.

Epic Games created Unreal Engine, which is the engine behind globally renowned games such as Fortnite, Rocket League, or Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Unreal Engine 5’s latest version includes technological advancements such as Lumen and Nanite, making game development easier and more powerful than ever before.

Do you want to find out more?

Then we can begin our learning roadmap.

First let’s talk about the Unreal Engine 5 System requirements, or you can jump directly to the Unreal Engine 5 installation.

WINDOWS

Unreal Engine 5 Minimum Specs for Windows

  • Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
  • Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics Card: Any graphics card that is compatible with either DirectX 11 or 12.
    • If you want to get the most out of Lumen technology (real-time lighting), it is recommended to use an NVIDIA RTX-2000 series or higher graphics card, or an AMD RX-6000 series or higher.
    • To use Nanite or Virtual Shadow Maps, you’ll need a graphics card that supports DirectX 12.

Recommended Unreal Engine 5 System requirements

If you’re thinking about building or upgrading your PC for Unreal Engine 5, you might be wondering what kind of hardware Epic Games uses. While your requirements will vary depending on the size and complexity of your projects, it’s useful to have an example of what a high-end PC at Epic Games looks like.

Take a look at the kind of hardware that Epic Games uses for their development work, so you can get a better idea of what might be needed to run Unreal Engine 5 effectively.

  • Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit (Version 20H2)
  • Processor: Six-Core Xeon E5-2643 @ 3.4GHz
  • Memory: 64 GB RAM
  • Hard Drives: 256 GB SSD (OS Drive) and 2 TB SSD (Data Drive)
  • Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
  • Tools: Xoreax Incredibuild (Dev Tools Package)

To learn more check the official documentation.

macOS

macOS UE5 System requirements

  • Recommended Operating System: MacOS Ventura
  • Minimum Operating System: macOS latest Monterey
  • Processor: Quad-core Intel, 2.5 GHz or faster
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics Card: Metal 1.2 Compatible Graphics Card

Linux

Linux UE5 System requirements

  • Recommended Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04
  • Minimum Operating System: CentOS 7.x and up
  • Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
  • Memory: 32 GB RAM
  • Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 960 GTX or Higher (8GB VRAM)
  • RHI Version: Vulkan: AMD (21.11.3+) and NVIDIA (515.48+)

In any case, I always recommend downloading the program and testing it on your PC. You have nothing to lose. Unreal Engine’s download size is typically around 20 GB.

Installing Unreal Engine

Installing new software can be a daunting task, but the process for installing Unreal Engine 5 is simple and straightforward. You can install Unreal Engine 5 on your PC with ease, whether you’re a seasoned developer or a newcomer to game development.

In this section, we’ll walk you through the installation process step by step so you can get started quickly creating your own real-time 3D environments and games.

Is Unreal Engine 5 free?

Unreal Engine is completely free to use for creating linear content such as films, as well as for custom and internal projects. It’s also free in many cases for game development—a 5% royalty is only charged if your title earns more than $1 million USD. More Info.

1) Epic Games Launcher

The first step to installing Unreal Engine 5 is to download the Epic Games Launcher. If you don’t already have it installed on your computer, you can download it from the Epic Games website.

If you already have the launcher installed, you can skip this step and move on to the next one.

Once you’ve navigated to the download page, simply click on the “Download” button and follow the prompts to download and install the launcher. The download size of the launcher is relatively small, usually around 150 MB, so the process shouldn’t take too long.

Is your PC ready for Unreal Engine 5? System requirements guide (1)

2) Download Unreal Engine

To install Unreal Engine 5, first, you need to open the Epic Games Launcher and select the “Unreal Engine” option from the left-hand column.

From there, click on the “Library” tab located on the top menu to access your library of installed and available engines.

Finally, select the version of the engine that you wish to install from the list of available options to begin the installation process.

You can have more than one engine version installed at the same time.

After you’ve decided on a version, click “Install” and select an installation folder of your choice.

Is your PC ready for Unreal Engine 5? System requirements guide (2)
Is your PC ready for Unreal Engine 5? System requirements guide (2024)

FAQs

Is your PC ready for Unreal Engine 5? System requirements guide? ›

This provides a reasonable guideline for developing games with Unreal Engine 5: Operating System: Windows 10 22H2. Power Supply: 1000W power supply unit. RAM: 128GB DDR4-3200.

Is my PC compatible with Unreal Engine 5? ›

This provides a reasonable guideline for developing games with Unreal Engine 5: Operating System: Windows 10 22H2. Power Supply: 1000W power supply unit. RAM: 128GB DDR4-3200.

What PC is good for Unreal Engine 5? ›

Unreal Engine 5 requires a minimum of an Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 processor. For optimum performance, we recommend an 8th gen Intel Core i9-9900K or above. However, if you're looking for the best performance, we suggest an Intel Core i9-13900KF or above.

Can I run Unreal Engine 5 on low end PC? ›

Nonetheless, its demanding technical requirements can pose issues for users working with weak hardware. Low-end hardware often struggles when running the engine, resulting in poor performance and sluggishness. In this article, we will focus on some tips to optimize Unreal Engine 5 performance on low-end computers.

Do you need a high end PC for Unreal Engine 5? ›

Absolutely. The only suggestion I would make is to have at least 64 GB of CPU RAM.

Is 16GB RAM enough for Unreal Engine 5? ›

As you can trivially find out, Unreal Engine is written in C++. The reason the Unreal editor requires a minimum of 32 GB of RAM, is the same reason that any other large content creation tool requires a lot of RAM: Content is big!

Is the RTX 3060 good for Unreal Engine? ›

For Unreal Editor use, specifically, I'd go with the 3060, because the VRAM difference will matter for levels that grow to at least moderate size. Not to beat my dead-horse above, but recall that chip-sets, feature-sets and hardware profiles are for the life of the card.

Can I run Unreal Engine 5 without a graphics card? ›

Integrated Graphics: Many CPUs come with integrated graphics chips that can run Unreal Engine 5 at a very basic level for simple projects. However, performance may not be viable for any serious development work, especially with advanced features like Lumen for global illumination or Nanite for virtualized geometry.

Does Unreal Engine need a graphics card? ›

Video Card (GPU)

Unreal Engine utilizes the video card primarily to display the graphics on the screen.

Is 8GB enough for Unreal Engine 5? ›

Hardware and Software Specifications

Even though the above document says 8GB RAM is enough, I would recommend at least getting 16GB. Otherwise you're gonna run out of memory frequently, Especially when packaging your project. I would also recommend getting more storage 512GB is gonna fill up fast.

Why is the UE5 so laggy? ›

Hardware Constraints

Unreal Engine is a high-fidelity engine that demands significant computational power. If your hardware doesn't meet the recommended specifications, you may experience lag. Solution: Upgrade your hardware (GPU, CPU, RAM) to meet or exceed Unreal's recommended system requirements.

How good of a computer do you need for Unreal Engine? ›

Unreal Engine 5 Requirements - Catness Game Studios

Get 64gb ram. And upgrade to NVIDIA 2080TI or 3070 (or higher, best would be 3080). You can also go for AMD cpu. For Unreal if you want to make huge open worlds most important is Ram on graphics card.

Is CPU or GPU more important for Unreal? ›

It is actually your processor that matters the most for performance in Unreal Engine. Your processor choice depends on how your application uses single-threaded or multi-threaded tasks. Single-threaded tasks need higher clock speeds, while multi-threaded tasks need more cores and threads.

What game engine is best for a low-end PC? ›

Best game engines for beginners
  • CryEngine. ...
  • Defold. ...
  • GameMaker 2. ...
  • GameSalad. ...
  • Godot. ...
  • Monogame. ...
  • Unity. Unity is one of the most popular and powerful game engines for designers to use. ...
  • Unreal Engine. The Unreal Engine is a free-to-use game design engine that can support 2D and 3D games.
Oct 13, 2023

What PC requirements for Unreal Engine? ›

Recommended Hardware
Operating SystemWindows 10 64-bit
ProcessorQuad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
Memory8 GB RAM
Video Card/DirectX VersionDirectX 11 or DirectX 12 compatible graphics card
1 more row

Is 8GB RAM enough for Unreal Engine 5? ›

Hardware and Software Specifications

Even though the above document says 8GB RAM is enough, I would recommend at least getting 16GB. Otherwise you're gonna run out of memory frequently, Especially when packaging your project. I would also recommend getting more storage 512GB is gonna fill up fast.

How do I know if my laptop can run Unreal Engine? ›

How to check if your computer can run Unreal Engine
  1. A 64-bit Windows 7 or the latest version operating system,
  2. Quad-core Intel or AMD processor in 2.5 GHz or faster,
  3. 8 GB RAM, and.
  4. DirectX 11 or 12 compatible graphics card.

References

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