Star Citizen requirements

Can I run Star Citizen?

To run the Star Citizen system requirements, you will need an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GPU, an Intel Core i7-4790K processor, 16GB of RAM, and 150GB of SSD space.

Deep into development, Star Citizen is an online spacefaring exploration experience and, surprisingly, not that demanding of a game (if you don't look too hard at the RAM requirements). That said, while the Star Citizen PC requirements might be quite low, you'll need a really good internet connection on a Windows 10 or 11 PC if you want to get anywhere in the game anytime soon.

To meet the Star Citizen minimum requirements, you'll need a processor as powerful as an Quad Core CPU - Intel: I7 (Sandy Bridge or later), AMD: Bulldozer or later in addition to 16GB of RAM. On the GPU side, the AMD Radeon RX 570 should be powerful enough to get you going on your spacefaring adventure.

Moving up to the Star Citizen recommended system requirements, running the game on a CPU like a Quad/Eight Core CPU - Intel: I7 (Sandy Bridge or later) or AMD: Ryzen 5 or later should help improve maximum and minimum frame rates. However, you'll be able to boost fps even further with graphics cards such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.

Star Citizen size - How big is Star Citizen?

The Star Citizen download size on PCs and laptops sits at 150GB of SSD space. The developers, however, have pointed out that the download size could grow above 150GB, so you might want to reserve some extra space for the game as more and more updates are released.

So, if you need more space or want to make an upgrade, check the PCGamesN buyers guide for the best SSD for gaming or just check the latest, best prices for SSDs.

Star Citizen release date

There's still no sign of an actual Star Citizen release date, but the beta has been available since 2012. The lack of a launch window hasn't held back the game's popularity, however, as over the past decade it's become the most crowdfunded game in history.

Star Citizen Steam

There is currently no Star Citizen Steam version to download. For now, the only way to get into the game is to download it directly from its website and play it through its own launcher.

Star Citizen performance guide

• Looking to improve your frame rate in Star Citizen? This is a pretty demanding game, so try some of the following steps.

• Better Star Citizen performance has been found with V-Sync turned off.

• Deleting the shader folder found in the USER folder after an update can also fix issues. To do this, go through the folders INSTALL FOLDER\StarCitizen\LIVE\USER and delete the "shaders" folder.

• Turning the "Chromatic Aberration" slider to 0 in the option may also affect performance positively, with only a small reduction in visual quality

• Star Citizen will always perform best on higher-end hardware, but due to constant updates and its long development time, requirements and performance will change.