Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, a new action game from the Warhammer 40K universe, will be released on November 30, 2022. Publisher and developer Fatshark is now announcing the detailed system requirements, which scale to the very top: For the first time, the new GeForce RTX 4080 (test) appears as the recommended graphics card.
Warhammer action with raytracing, DLSS and FSR
Developed for Xbox Series X|S and PC, the multiplayer title continues the concept introduced with Warhammer: Vermintide 2. Four players must work together to defeat incoming waves of AI enemies. Rather than a set of pre-made characters, Darktide will give players the ability to customize their class as well as their appearance. The in-game currency earned can be used to buy new weapons, which can then be improved by hand.
Technically, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is interesting for several reasons. On the one hand, it is one of the first games to implement DLSS 3 (test) with frame generation; Nvidia just delivered the software basis for this yesterday with the new GeForce 526.98 game-ready driver. In addition, the action game offers support for Nvidia Reflex and ray tracing. However, if you want to use the rays in 3,840 × 2,160 pixels with high settings, Fatshark recommends an RTX 4080 right away; paired with an Intel Core i7-12700K or an AMD Ryzen 9 5900. But then around 100 FPS should also be possible with DLSS quality and frame generation as well as high graphics settings.
Official System Requirements for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide ( Image: Fatshark)As an alternative to DLSS Super Resolution (formerly DLSS 2) and DLSS 3, AMD's competing upscaling technology FSR is also supported in version 1 and 2; even in the latter case, the ray tracing performance of an RTX 6900 XT is not sufficient to achieve a three-digit refresh rate with the settings mentioned. Of course, the same applies to all graphics cards from Nvidia's Ampere generation (RTX 3000). The RTX 3080, for example, only achieves around 60 to 70 FPS, with DLSS quality, despite a resolution reduced to 2,560 × 1,440 pixels or even 1,920 × 1,080 pixels and reduced ray tracing settings. With medium settings and only low raytracing reflections, an RTX 2060 should at least be able to achieve playable frame rates in Full HD.
Even without raytracing it must be a Radeon RX 6800 XT
The system requirements for playing without ray tracing are more accessible, although here too at 1,920 × 1,080 pixels with activated DLSS or FSR and a GeForce RTX 3060 or an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is recommended – even for medium graphics settings. The combination is also surprising because the AMD graphics card is actually much more powerful at the level of an RTX 3070 or even RTX 3080.
Only with the low preset and significantly lower target FPS is a GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon RX 570 as well as a Ryzen 5 2600 or a Core i5-6600 called at least. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide also requires 50GB of storage space, with Fatshark recommending an SSD.