Cyberpunk 2077 quietly drops support for older graphics cards and Windows 7
CD Projekt dropped a major Cyberpunk 2077 update yesterday that tweaked almost everything about it, from AI behavior to new world elements, driving updates, rebalanced skills, more apartments to rent, better nail polish (yes, seriously), and a whole lot more. It's big, and hopefully it'll improve the experience in a commensurately meaningful way.
Something else that changed with the release of the 1.5 update are the Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements: Nvidia 700 series graphics cards, which were previously part of the minimum specification, are no longer supported. You're not necessarily out of luck if you've got one: Like many things in life, whether or not Cyberpunk 2077 will continue to "work" with 700 Series GPUs will depend largely on what you're willing to put up with.
"Due to the end of support for graphics drivers, we've decided to change the minimum system requirements of Nvidia graphics cards to GTX 970," CDPR said in the 1.5 patch notes. "The game won't necessarily stop functioning on said cards, however, we are no longer testing the game on Nvidia 700 Series graphics cards."
Windows 7 support for Cyberpunk 2077 has also been dropped. Again, this doesn't mean that Win7 users are immediately doomed to eviction from Night City, but the clock is ticking. (And has been for a very long time now—it really is time to upgrade, folks.)
"Due to technical limitations of non-native DirectX 12 implementation on Windows 7, and the end of, or limited, support for graphics drivers, game updates will not be supporting Windows 7 after June 15, 2022," CD Projekt said. "If updated with patches published after that time, the game may stop working on this operating system.
With all said and done, the new minimum requirements for Cyberpunk 2077, as laid out on Steam, are:
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K or AMD FX-8310
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 470
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 70 GB available space
As for what you should be playing on, you'll likely want to aim for something beefier if you can: We had some recommendations for an optimal experience back when Cyberpunk 2077 first came out and if you're just getting into the game now, they still hold up.