Official PC Specs for Microsoft Flight Simulator Revealed

Countless aviation enthusiasts are excited about the revival of the Microsoft Flight Simulator. But what will it take to play? Now we know. The developers have released the official technical specs for the game, detailing the minimal, recommended, and ideal hardware needed to play this game.

Earlier this week, the development team posted an update on the Flight Sim website. The post contains a graphic, showing the game specs. That's it. No need for anything more, really. Here's that graphic:



There were a few things we noticed. One is that you need the Windows 10 operating system, regardless of specs. This makes sense, given that Microsoft is making the game and they know their operating system the best. They most likely ensured that Flight Sim cooperates with Windows 10 as smoothly as possible.

The graphic card recommendations are a bit lower than we expected. Given the scope of the world and the game's ambitions, we expected something a bit more graphically intensive. The same can be said for the computer processor.

Though perhaps it wasn't the GPU and CPU where that struggle is apparent. The RAM, however, appears to be a bit above average. Even at minimum recommended specs, it asks for at least 8GB of RAM, a moderate amount, but not too hard to obtain for a gaming PC. But with 16GB as recommended and 32GB for ideal, that's a hefty degree of RAM for a game.

The development team has previously expressed a large interest in implementing VR support for the game. This has been a largely requested feature by the community, one that we wholefully agree with. We can only assume that should such a feature come to the game, it will require a noteworthy bump up in spec requirements. In our estimates, recommended would become minimum and ideal would become recommended.

All in all, this sounds about right for a game like this. Though it serves as a grim reminder that my current PC is ever so gradually becoming under-par for current-gen games. Perhaps an upgrade is in due order.