Microsoft announced that it’s increasing Minecraft’s minimum and recommended system requirements for the first time in 17 years. According to the company’s blog post, Minecraft: Java Edition will get a spec bump to ensure that the game runs smoothly today and in the future. While it’s understandable that the game’s developers would want to increase the performance of the hardware that the title runs on to implement more advanced features, the new requirements are significantly higher than the previous minimum specification. This could negatively affect players on older hardware that barely hits the minimum requirements, who would have no choice but to upgrade their PCs at a time when RAM prices are at a record high.
Java Edition Minimum (Old) |
Java Edition Minimum (New) |
Bedrock Edition Minimum |
Java Edition Recommended (Old) |
Java Edition Recommended (New) |
Bedrock Edition Recommended |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
OS |
Windows 7, macOS 10.14.5 Mojave, or later |
Windows 10 64-Bit, Windows on ARM, macOS 12+, or Linux 64-bit |
Windows 10 19041.0 or higher |
Windows 10, macOS 10.14.5 Mojave, or later |
Windows 11 64-bit, macOS 14+, or Linux 64-bit |
Windows 10 19041.0 or higher |
CPU |
Intel Core i3-3210 / AMD A8-8600 / Apple M1 |
Intel Core i3-10100 / AMD Ryzen 3 3100 / Qualcomm Snapdragon X / Apple M1 |
Intel Celeron J4105 / AMD FX-4100 |
Intel Core i5-4690 / AMD A10-7800 / Apple M1 |
Intel Core i5-12400 / AMD Ryzen 5 5600 / Apple M2 Pro |
Intel i7-6500U / AMD A8-6800K |
GPU |
Intel HD Graphics 4000 / AMD Radeon R5 |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 / AMD Radeon RX 460 / Intel Arc A310 / Intel i5-6400 (iGPU) |
Intel HD Graphics 4000 / AMD Radeon R5 |
Nvidia GeForce 700 series / AMD Radeon RX 200 series |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT / Intel Arc A580 |
Nvidia GeForce 940M / Radeon HD 8570D |
Memory |
2GB |
8GB (discrete GPU) / 12GB (iGPU) |
4GB |
4GB |
16GB |
8GB |
