Minecraft System Requirements

To run the Minecraft system requirements, you will need an Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics card, an Intel Celeron J4105 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 1GB of HD or SSD space.

You don't need a chest full of diamonds to build a gaming PC capable of surmounting the Minecraft PC requirements, but the game does perform better for those with more powerful systems. Don't be fooled by the pixel-art textures or visual simplicity of Minecraft, because this game can be incredibly hardware intensive whether you're deep in the mines, building enormous cities, or fighting bosses like the Ender Dragon.

In order to craft a rig that meets the Minecraft minimum system requirements, you'll need to put together something with the equivalence of anAMD FX-4100 processor, an AMD Radeon R5 graphics card, and 4GB of RAM. This will get you up and running on the lowest settings, but you may still encounter lag if you build particularly large structures, or load up a new area like The Nether for the first time.

Can my computer run Minecraft? To ensure the best possible Minecraft performance, you'll want to beat the Minecraft recommended specs, which won't cost you a heavy sum of money. We recommend a PC with an Intel i7-6500U or AMD A8-6600K processor, an NVIDIA GeForce 940M or AMD Radeon HD 8570D GPU, and at least 8GB of RAM. The Minecraft requirements are intended to be incredibly accessible, especially as the game is often used as an educational tool in numerous school programs.

However, if you plan on building a massive world, or installing some of the more complicated mod packs, you'll want to increase your total RAM before anything else. We highly recommend that you bump your RAM up to 16GB and even 32GB for the heaviest mod collections. By assigning dedicated RAM to the game, you can easily improve your performance, and reach for the best Minecraft mod overhauls and packages.

If you're keen to play on the maximum Minecraft settings and reach the Minecraft RTX system requirements, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU is needed at the minimum to enjoy ray tracing in Minecraft. Unfortunately, AMD graphics cards do not support this system at present, but high-end AMD graphics cards will still be able to enjoy a really great performance when playing Minecraft.

Minecraft size

The Minecraft download size for PC is just 1GB of HD space. However, the more you explore, and therefore the more the game generates additional biomes to explore, you can expect your save game file to balloon to epic proportions over an extended period of time. For that reason, you might want to set aside 20GB of HD space, just in case.

Of course, the game will take up significantly more room than 1GB if you plan on installing one of the many Minecraft mods or mod packages that are readily available, and expand on the base game immensely. If so, you might want to consider installing the game on an SSD for the best performance. So, if you need more space or want to make an upgrade, check the PCGamesN buyers guide for the best SSD for gaming.

Minecraft performance guide

If you’re struggling to get a smooth frame rate in Minecraft on a laptop for example, there are ways to improve it with the following Minecraft settings.

• There’s the obvious, like switching your graphics from “Fancy” to “Fast”, turning down the render distance, turning off clouds, and disabling the more complex lighting and particle effects.
• You can also run the game in either a smaller screen, or full screen. The former helps by giving your computer less on-screen information to process, the latter by making sure your computer focuses only on Minecraft. If one option doesn’t work, try the other.
• If you’re playing on a multiplayer server, being around lots of other players can also cause significant lag. Try setting up your base somewhere a bit more off the beaten track.
• If you want to check your frame rate, you can bring up the debug screen by pressing F3. If you’re still having issues, open the Task Manager and set the Minecraft process to high priority.

Some people will still struggle to get a good performance out of their system when playing Minecraft because, while it doesn't need the strongest system to run, there can be some very high spikes in system requirements when the world is loading "chunks" which are sections of the world. To improve your game's performance, lower your render distance to 10 chunks or lower, turn off clouds, disabe V-Sync, reduce particles, and reduce biome blend. There are many other quality of life settings that aren't necessary and you can turn off as well. You can find all of these settings under the Video Settings tab in Options.

As long-time Minecraft players, we recommend ensuring you have more RAM than the recommended specs call for because the game can get very RAM hungry. Essentially, the larger your world becomes, the more RAM it requires to keep it loaded and to process the changes. Therefore, installing more RAM can lead to major gameplay performance boosts.

Minecraft updates and patches

The Minecraft: Bedrock Edition update 1.20.70 released on March 12, 2024, and is quite small compared to other Minecraft updates. According to the patch notes, the latest Minecraft update doubles the health of wolves, and includes some experimental features in preparation for the upcoming Minecraft version 1.21. These experimental features include new mobs like the Bogged - a skeleton variant that fires poisoned arrows - and adds new blocks like the Vault, which can be found in the Trial Chambers which randomly spawn. You'll need to thoroughly explore a Trail Chamber to find a Trail Key if you want to unlock a Vault, thereby gaining access to the valuable rewards stored within. A number of other fixes and changes were also released, and you can find the full patch notes on the official website.

Minecraft Steam

You can't get Minecraft on Steam, and you probably won't ever be able to. However, it is available via PC Game Pass, and the legacy Java edition is still available to download from the game's official website.

Interested in a new way to play Minecraft? Why not check out the Minecraft Dungeons system requirements?

Minecraft will run on PC system with Windows 10 and upwards. Additionally it has Mac and Linux versions.

Looking for an upgrade? Try our easy to use Minecraft set up guides to find the best, cheapest cards. Filter for Minecraft graphics card comparison and CPU compare. We'll help you find the best deal for the right gear to run the game.

Minecraft FPS - what frame rate can you expect?

How many FPS will I get on Minecraft? We reference thousands of reports from PCGameBenchmark users running our FPS tracking app to tell you exactly how Minecraft performs across a range of different settings and resolutions on the most popular PC gaming setups.

What frame rate does Minecraft run at?

Avg FPS	CPU	GPU	RAM
62	Intel Core i5-10400F	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER	16 GB
45	Intel Core i5-1035G1	Intel UHD	8 GB
45	Intel Core i7-3770	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER	16 GB
44	Intel Core i5-8250U	Intel UHD Graphics 620	8 GB
33	Intel Core i5-1035G4	Intel Iris Plus	12 GB

Are you experiencing Minecraft FPS drops and stutters? Want to know exactly how the game performs on your system? An FPS monitor is the first step in understanding how the parts in your gaming PC are actually performing in real-world conditions.

Download our free FPS Monitor via Overwolf to count your frame rates as you play, and test how tweaks to your settings can boost FPS and increase Minecraft performance. Our app is compatible with hundreds of the best PC games and available now.