Star Citizen requirements

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 AMD Ryzen 5 1600 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 the Intel Core i7 10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 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 options also may affect performance positively and only a small aspect of visuals in taken away. 
• Star Citizen will always be best on higher end hardware, but due to constant updates and not being officially released yet, requirements and overall performance is subject to change. 

Star Citizen will run on PC system with Windows 10 64-bit or higher and upwards.

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

Star Citizen FPS - what frame rate can you expect?

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

What frame rate does Star Citizen run at?

Here are the typical frame rate samples

Avg FPS	CPU	GPU	RAM
60	Intel Core i7-14700F	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	32 GB
38	Intel Core i7-7700	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB	32 GB
37	Intel Core i7-8750H	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060	32 GB
35	Intel Core i9-7900X	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080	64 GB
29	Intel Core i5-8400	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060	32 GB

What frame rate does Star Citizen run at? Check our FPS Calculator

Are you experiencing Star Citizen FPS drops and stutters? Want to know exactly how the game performs on your system? You can get a free easy FPS test for all your games using the PCGameBenchmark FPS monitor tool - your first step to understanding how the parts in your gaming PC are actually performing in real-world conditions.