PC players can access XDefiant for free via Ubisoft Connect when it launches day one on May 21. While this allows for wide accessibility on the platform, PC players also need to ensure their machine meets the minimum or recommended hardware requirements for XDefiant.
As with any title on PC, XDefiant has a set of hardware specifications that need to be met before you can play. If your computer doesn’t meet at least the minimum requirements, you’ll either have an unplayable experience or the game won’t boot up at all. Fortunately for all XDefiant fans on PC, the game features incredibly generous requirements that allow just about anybody to hop in right away.
XDefiant PC Minimum and Recommended Requirements
The developers at Ubisoft have offered four different sets of PC specifications. These different sets allow you to see what hardware you need to play the game at various resolutions with specific graphics settings.
The first set of specifications are the minimum requirements, allowing you to play at a low resolution, settings, and presumably at a low frame rate (FPS). Ubisoft has not clarified what FPS you can expect from each specification set. Luckily, the minimum requirements feature a four-core, eight-thread CPU and a 4 GB GPU, such as the GeForce 1050 Ti. The 1050 Ti was originally released in 2016 and will still be widely accessible in 2024. To top things off, you only need 8 GB of RAM to run XDefiant on its lowest settings.
Of course, we have yet to see whether these minimum requirements allow you to effectively play XDefiant. You might have to tinker with Windows settings out of game to make the experience playable with that particular hardware. And we don’t even know what kind of FPS you’ll get with that PC configuration. While you can attempt to run XDefiant using the minimum requirements, which you can find in plenty of last-generation laptops, the recommended requirements are where you ideally want to be.
The recommended requirements call for the same CPU (either an i3-10105F or Ryzen 3 3100) but a GPU with 6 GB of VRAM and 16 GB of RAM. These specifications make much more sense from a technical standpoint, especially in 2024. With a beefier GPU and double the RAM, you should be able to play XDefiant at 1080p, 60 FPS without much issue.
The last two specification lists are for 1440p and 4K gaming, respectively. You can find the requirements for those resolutions below:
Enthusiast Requirements (1440p)
CPU: Intel i5-10400; AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: Intel ARC A770 (16GB); NVIDIA RTX 2060 (6GB); AMD RX 5600 XT (6GB)
RAM: 16 GB Dual Channel
OS: Windows 10/Windows 11
Storage: 35 GB
Ultra Requirements (4K)
CPU: Intel i7-9700K; AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3080 (10GB); AMD RX 6800 XT (16GB)
RAM: 16 GB Dual Channel
OS: Windows 10/Windows 11
Storage: 35 GB
As you can see, you’ll need a much stronger CPU and GPU to run XDefiant at higher resolutions. However, the 1440p requirements are fairly manageable for 2024, as the hardware in use is still several generations old. This is likely the sweet spot for most gamers, assuming they have a 1440p capable monitor.
Along with being free-to-play, Ubisoft is making XDefiant quite accessible to fans with its PC requirements. You can whip out an old machine from the 2010s and experience clear, 1080p resolution with decent frame rates. However, we’ll have to see how well-optimized XDefiant is on its final build when it launches on May 21.
