Returnal coming to PC but Sony recommends 32GB of RAM

[AlTech]

Summary

 

Sony is bringing Returnal, a PlayStation exclusive, to PC but surprisingly Sony has said the game will require 16GB of RAM and they Recommend 32GB of RAM.

 

The recommended requirements also include an i7-8700 or an R7 2700X and either an RTX 2070 Super or RX 6700XT.

 

A leaked video that has since been removed from YouTube suggests that the requirements are due to Ray Tracing support.

 

It has been suggested the game will come with DLSS and FSR support.

 

Quotes

Quote

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM:

• • OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-6400 (4 core 2.7GHz) AMD Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 3.5GHz)
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB)
  • Storage: 60 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: SSD Recommended

RECOMMENDED:

• • OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1903)
  • Processor: Intel i7-8700 (6 core 3.7 GHz) AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core 3.7 GHz)
  • Memory: 32 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER (8 GB) AMD RX 6700 XT (12 GB)
  • Storage: 60 GB available space

 

Quote

Sony’s Returnal is the latest PlayStation exclusive to make the jump to PC, but it comes with a hefty RAM recommendation (via WccfTech). While you’ll need a minimum of 16GB of RAM in your rig just to get it in a playable state, Returnal’s Steam listing recommends at least 32GB to get the most out of its gameplay and graphics.

 

Quote

Returnal is a third-person roguelike shooter that features undeniably stunning visuals, but it’s still not clear why the game demands so much RAM to unlock its full potential. The rest of the system requirements seem pretty normal for a game ported from a next-generation console, as you’ll need at least an Intel i7-8700 or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X CPU, along with an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super or AMD RX 6700 XT GPU or better to meet its recommended specs.

 

My thoughts

The minimum requirements asking for an RX 580 is a little high tbh and so is recommending an RX 6700XT. I'm very interested to know why Sony is requiring 16GB of RAM and recommending 32GB of RAM given the PS5's 16GB of RAM. Hopefully this game runs well and looks good on PC.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/11/23504346/sony-returnal-pc-ram-recommendation

https://wccftech.com/returnal-pc-requirements-detailed-no-crossplay-with-ps5/

[Arika]

so they didn't optimise shit, the PS5 has 16 GB of RAM, why do they recommend double that on PC? they are relying on the brute force method instead of putting in effort.

[porina]

The minimum is quite close to Elden Ring's differing only in ER stating 1060 3GB, where we allegedly need 6GB here. Both require some quad core CPU, but Returnal requirements are a little lower. Elden Ring states 12GB, and being realistic, that will be a pretty rare amount of ram to have. If you have more than 8, you'll most likely have 16. So I'd say the minimums here are comparable to Elden Ring so not exceptional.

 

If "Recommended" is indeed an eye candy mode with RT, then the specs I feel aren't that unreasonable. 2070S/6700XT is similar or better than current gen high end consoles in performance. So if you want similar eye candy, you need similar specs. Similarly 6 core I feel is reasonable to expect for that level of gameplay, with consoles typically offering up to 7 Zen 2 cores to the game, with the other(s) reserved for OS features. I'm even surprised they allowed back to Zen+, but presumably that's why 8 cores not 6 are needed there, and I'd expect 6 Zen 2 cores or newer would suffice. 32GB of ram is something new for mainstream unmodded games though, but that's still potential 15% of the Steam market.

 

Current Steam Hardware Survey on ram quantity:

8GB 21.2%

12GB 3.6%

16GB 52.6%

24GB 1.1%

32GB+ 14.8%

 

 

[jaslion]

So basically they took the ps5 version, didnt optimize it and let it use 14gb of ram as it feels like. Then min spec 16gb but recommend 32gb so the pc doesnt slow down.

 

Then basically console specced cpu and gpu.

 

Honestly pretty much exactly how I predicted things would go since launch of the ps5 and xbox sx

[Levent]

I wonder why their RT implementation is using that much ram. I have not noticed any significant bump in RAM usage when RT is enabled in any of the games I played.

[Doobeedoo]

Seems also low effort optimization. Min kinda seem fine, reco specs if RT I take it and higher fps. RAM wise I take it higher is because how consoles have unified memory, so again little optimization done so have double of what shared memory console has.

[AlexGoesHigh]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

so they didn't optimise shit, the PS5 has 16 GB of RAM, why do they recommend double that on PC? they are relying on the brute force method instead of putting in effort.

 

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

So basically they took the ps5 version, didnt optimize it and let it use 14gb of ram as it feels like. Then min spec 16gb but recommend 32gb so the pc doesnt slow down.

 

Then basically console specced cpu and gpu.

 

Honestly pretty much exactly how I predicted things would go since launch of the ps5 and xbox sx

 

7 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Seems also low effort optimization. Min kinda seem fine, reco specs if RT I take it and higher fps. RAM wise I take it higher is because how consoles have unified memory, so again little optimization done so have double of what shared memory console has.

My guess is since the game is only on PS5 it was made around the PS5 SSD and the speed of it and instead of using DirectStorage (which could be cause its not easy to make the switch out of the PS5 API or also sheer laziness) they decide to just fuck it and cache the whole job of the PS5 SSD in RAM.

[Doobeedoo]

13 minutes ago, AlexGoesHigh said:

 

 

My guess is since the game is only on PS5 it was made around the PS5 SSD and the speed of it and instead of using DirectStorage (which could be cause its not easy to make the switch out of the PS5 API or also sheer laziness) they decide to just fuck it and cache the whole job of the PS5 SSD in RAM.

Kinda doubtful because we've seen this exact thing before with bad ports from older gen that had HDD.

[jaslion]

6 minutes ago, AlexGoesHigh said:

 

 

My guess is since the game is only on PS5 it was made around the PS5 SSD and the speed of it and instead of using DirectStorage (which could be cause its not easy to make the switch out of the PS5 API or also sheer laziness) they decide to just fuck it and cache the whole job of the PS5 SSD in RAM.

Thats not that simple. The ps5 seems to use something similar to direct storage so the gpu can fetch from the storage directly.

 

However on pc not all systems have this option and there are a buncg of storage mediums. Slow and fast alike so they'll have to do it the old way of fetching things from disk, putting it through the ram and then gpu. Introducing some cpu overhead and possible loss of performance.

 

Since it can work on a 16gb system I assume they are basically doing the console specs as recommended specs and baseline. Then seeing how low it can go before things become an issue.

[AlexGoesHigh]

3 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Kinda doubtful because we've seen this exact thing before with bad ports from older gen that had HDD.

Perhaps, but so far Sony ports have been better than that, after the shit that was horizon zero dawn they haven't released ports that bad.

 

I'm just doubtful that after releasing decent ports and being consistent with their release their gonna crap the bed with this one that bad all of a sudden.

 

Though it is also possible that since this is the first PS5 only game they port its easier for them to screw it that all their previous port which came from the PS4, perhaps all their tooling and work in porting has been transforming a PS4 codebase and its libraries, API, etc. to PC equivalents and they are starting over for the PS5.

[TetraSky]

Tell me your game is not optimized without telling me your game is not optimized...

 

It could also technically be because the computers they had to test it on, were only on the higher end and they didn't have any computer with worse hardware than this. But surely not, right?

[Doobeedoo]

11 minutes ago, AlexGoesHigh said:

Perhaps, but so far Sony ports have been better than that, after the shit that was horizon zero dawn they haven't released ports that bad.

 

I'm just doubtful that after releasing decent ports and being consistent with their release their gonna crap the bed with this one that bad all of a sudden.

 

Though it is also possible that since this is the first PS5 only game they port its easier for them to screw it that all their previous port which came from the PS4, perhaps all their tooling and work in porting has been transforming a PS4 codebase and its libraries, API, etc. to PC equivalents and they are starting over for the PS5.

Really port from new consoles should be quite better. Still we're talking about ports these days. Base games tend to run like shit on release...

[sof006]

Bad port incoming, highly suspicious of those requirements, considering Cyberpunk which is a massive open world with Ray Traced Reflections etc requires only 12GBs of RAM for recommended settings.

[Commodus]

Have to say I'm amused at all the folks wondering why a game that was designed around the PS5 architecture needs extra resources to run on more generalized PCs.

 

And no, it's not necessarily a "bad port." Returnal wasn't just designed for certain CPU and GPU models; it was built around the very nature of how the PS5 works, with assumptions about memory usage and SSD access. That's not something you can 'fix' in a short space of time, as it involves rewriting fundamental code.

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, Arika S said:

so they didn't optimise shit, the PS5 has 16 GB of RAM, why do they recommend double that on PC? they are relying on the brute force method instead of putting in effort.

I mean alot of ram goes to running the operating in windows so while the ps5 has 16gb of ram it also uses a very lightweight os. Also yes there are probably some optimization issues as well but it's not the whole story 

[porina]

4 hours ago, jaslion said:

Since it can work on a 16gb system I assume they are basically doing the console specs as recommended specs and baseline. Then seeing how low it can go before things become an issue.

Keep in mind that PS5 (and similarly on XB) the "ram" is shared between both CPU and GPU, not the separate pools we have on most PCs. I'm not sure how that might impact a PC port, other than some data may be duplicated/stored in system ram that wouldn't be on PS5.

 

4 hours ago, sof006 said:

Bad port incoming, highly suspicious of those requirements, considering Cyberpunk which is a massive open world with Ray Traced Reflections etc requires only 12GBs of RAM for recommended settings.

Cyperpunk non-RT below 4k recommended is 12GB, but at 4k or with any RT it is 16GB.

 

I still don't feel 16GB minimum is a big deal. The era of "is 8GB enough" is several years ago. If they really need 32GB for recommended is more interesting in how that would be used. Maybe we're entering "is 16GB enough" era for high end gaming. Certainly 32GB seems more sensible amount to go for if building a DDR5 system as lower density modules will hurt performance.

[Arika]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I mean alot of ram goes to running the operating in windows so while the ps5 has 16gb of ram it also uses a very lightweight os. Also yes there are probably some optimization issues as well but it's not the whole story 

There are numbers between 16 and 32. Windows isn't that heavy

[Middcore]

Tell me you didn't bother to do any optimization without telling me you didn't bother to do any optimization.

[TrigrH]

I suspect the game would like 15 gb of ram or something which with a 16gb system + windows might not be ideal.

 

So instead of listing 18 or 20gb of ram they just listed 32....

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

There are numbers between 16 and 32. Windows isn't that heavy

All requires asymmetrical ram configurations.

And with my 32GB of ram, windows stretched itself out to about 9GB of usage right this second..
I have had windows use 12 at times on my old 24GB system.

I'm sure it runs just fine at 16GB.

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/12/2022 at 11:54 PM, starsmine said:

And with my 32GB of ram, windows stretched itself out to about 9GB of usage right this second..

yeah but thats because windows is designed that way, not because it actually needs it... my pc typically uses around 2.5gb with 16 installed on win 10 and there arent any issues with that...  it also always  "uses" ie allocates 16gb whenever i play a game, also no issues with that (since its just "virtually" using that much)

 

 

On 12/12/2022 at 1:30 PM, AlexGoesHigh said:

after the shit that was horizon zero dawn

what was wrong with that in your opinion?  the game runs perfectly fine for me.

 

 

On 12/12/2022 at 11:54 PM, starsmine said:

I'm sure it runs just fine at 16GB.

but not maxxed out... if 32 is really a final requirement , im kinda looking forward to the shitstorm steam reviews etc will be lol. 

[Chiyawa]

Well, RAM usage depends on what you are using. For example, if you stream while gaming, you might want more RAM to run your game. Most game files are likely to be compressed as well so they do need some room for decompression. Also there could be anti-cheat software, DRM keys, proprietary movie codecs and poor optimisation. Sony also probably don't want to let user had a bad experience of their games as well, and many people just don't know much about their computer performance, other than just fancy 16GB RAM or RTX 3050 in the PC specification.

[Kisai]

45 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Well, RAM usage depends on what you are using. For example, if you stream while gaming, you might want more RAM to run your game. Most game files are likely to be compressed as well so they do need some room for decompression. Also there could be anti-cheat software, DRM keys, proprietary movie codecs and poor optimisation. Sony also probably don't want to let user had a bad experience of their games as well, and many people just don't know much about their computer performance, other than just fancy 16GB RAM or RTX 3050 in the PC specification.

 

Nah, the problem is likely more simple. They don't want people complaining that the performance sucks on the PC port, so they just put requirements at a level that would ensure that the game runs at parity with the console version. So that means needing at least 50% more CPU, GPU and RAM than the console since a PC doesn't have GDDR6 (which is likely 30% faster than DDR4 in a PC,) and isn't guaranteed to have PCIe4 SSD's which are required in PS5's.

 

That said, most "PC port" of console games are not intended to be optimized to run on potato's, only whatever is parity with their development environment. 

[Arika]

1 hour ago, Chiyawa said:

Well, RAM usage depends on what you are using. For example, if you stream while gaming, you might want more RAM to run your game

Unless this develpor is an utter moron of collosal propotions, that should never affect the recommended specs.

[Chiyawa]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

They don't want people complaining that the performance sucks on the PC port,

That's one of the reason. I don't suppose you can stream your game session using PS5, right?

 

2 hours ago, Arika S said:

Unless this develpor is an utter moron of collosal propotions, that should never affect the recommended specs.

Indeed. Many developers just care if the game works and don't care for optimisation.