Hardware and Software Specifications for Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.8 Documentation

Operating System

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This page covers the hardware and software requirements for Unreal Engine (UE5).

Recommended Hardware


Operating System	Windows 11
Processor	Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
Memory	32 GB RAM
Graphics RAM	8 GB or more
Graphics Card	DirectX 12 compatible graphics card with the latest drivers.

Although some features have a minimum requirement of DirectX 11, we recommend DirectX 12 for most games.

To get the most out of rendering features of Unreal Engine 5, such as Nanite and Lumen, see the Requirements for UE5 Rendering Features section of this page.

Minimum Software Requirements

Minimum requirements for running the engine or editor are listed below.

Running the Engine
Operating System	Windows 10 Version 22H2 (64-bit) or Windows 10 Enterprise Version 21H2 (64-bit)
DirectX Runtime	DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)

The requirements for programmers developing with the engine are listed below.

Developing with the engine
All 'Running the Engine' requirements (automatically installed)
Visual Studio Version	Use Visual Studio 2026 for general development. Use Visual Studio 2022 for Nintendo development and AGDE below v26.1.102

Developing with the engine

All 'Running the Engine' requirements (automatically installed)

Visual Studio Version

Use Visual Studio 2026 for general development.

Use Visual Studio 2022 for Nintendo development and AGDE below v26.1.102

iOS App Development
iTunes Version	iTunes 12 or higher

Although Visual Studio is recommended for Windows development, Unreal Engine also supports VS Code and Rider.

Prerequisite Software Installers

Unreal Engine includes installers for everything you need to run the editor and engine, such as the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable.

When you install Unreal Engine through the Epic Games Launcher, the launcher automatically installs these prerequisites for you. However, you may need to run the installers yourself if you build Unreal Engine from source, or if you must prepare a computer with all the Unreal Engine prerequisites for a specific purpose. For example, if you are set up a fresh computer to act as a Swarm Agent.

You can find the installers in the Engine/Extras/Redist/en-us folder under your Unreal Engine installation location.

Support for 32-bit platforms was removed in Unreal Engine 5.

If you use Perforce to get the Unreal Engine source code, you can find binaries in the Engine/Extras/Redist/en-us folder of the Perforce repository.

To learn more about Visual Studio, see Setting Up Visual Studio.

Graphics Card Drivers

We currently recommend using the latest stable releases from each card manufacturer:

Performance Notes

The spec below represents a typical system used at Epic Games (a Lenovo P620 Content Creation Workstation, standard version). This provides a reasonable guideline for developing games with Unreal Engine 5.

Operating System: Windows 11
Power Supply: 1400W Power supply unit
RAM: 256 GB DDR5-4800MHz (RDIMM, ECC)
Processor: AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 7985WX Processor (3.20 GHz up to 5.10 GHz)
OS Drive: 2 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Performance TLC Opal
DATA Drive: 4 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Performance TLC Opal
GPU: NVIDIA RTX™ 4080 16GB GDDR6
NIC: AMD RZ616
TPM Compliant

We recommend Unreal Build Accelerator (UBA) for distributed compilation. UBA can be used alongside other distributed build providers. If you're not using a distributed build solution, a machine with at least 12 to 16 cores is a practical local-compile baseline — additional cores continue to help, which is part of why the reference workstation above uses a significantly higher core count to support full editor, asset, and build workflows.

Requirements for UE5 Rendering Features

Some rendering features of Unreal Engine have different requirements than the minimum specifications.

UE5 Feature	System Requirements
Lumen Global Illumination, Lumen Reflections, and MegaLights	Windows 10 build 1909.1350 and newer with DirectX 12 support. SM6 must be enabled in the Project Settings. One of the following graphics cards: AMD RX-6000 series or newer. Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics Cards or newer. NVIDIA RTX-2000 series or newer. Lumen Hardware Ray Tracing now requires SM6 to be set in Project Settings. To learn more, see Lumen Technical Details.
Nanite Virtualized Geometry and Virtual Shadow Maps	All versions of Windows 10 build 1909.1350 and newer, and Windows 11 with support for DirectX 12 Agility SDK are supported. Windows 10 version 2004 and 20H2 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .789. DirectX 12 (with Shader Model 6.6 atomics), or Vulkan (VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64). SM6 must be enabled in the Project Settings. (On by default in new projects.) Windows 10 version 1909 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .1350. Latest graphics drivers. To learn more, see Nanite Virtualized Geometry and Virtual Shadow Maps.
Temporal Super Resolution	Runs on any video card that supports Shader Model 5, but the limit of 8UAVs per shader has performance implications. Temporal Super Resolution shaders compile with 16bit types enabled on D3D12 that supports Shader Model 6. To learn more, see Temporal Super Resolution.

UE5 Feature

System Requirements

Lumen Global Illumination, Lumen Reflections, and MegaLights

Windows 10 build 1909.1350 and newer with DirectX 12 support.
- SM6 must be enabled in the Project Settings.
One of the following graphics cards:
- AMD RX-6000 series or newer.
- Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics Cards or newer.
- NVIDIA RTX-2000 series or newer.

Lumen Hardware Ray Tracing now requires SM6 to be set in Project Settings.

To learn more, see Lumen Technical Details.

Nanite Virtualized Geometry and Virtual Shadow Maps

All versions of Windows 10 build 1909.1350 and newer, and Windows 11 with support for DirectX 12 Agility SDK are supported.
- Windows 10 version 2004 and 20H2 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .789.
- DirectX 12 (with Shader Model 6.6 atomics), or Vulkan (VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64).
- SM6 must be enabled in the Project Settings. (On by default in new projects.)
- Windows 10 version 1909 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .1350.
Latest graphics drivers.

To learn more, see Nanite Virtualized Geometry and Virtual Shadow Maps.

Temporal Super Resolution

Runs on any video card that supports Shader Model 5, but the limit of 8UAVs per shader has performance implications. Temporal Super Resolution shaders compile with 16bit types enabled on D3D12 that supports Shader Model 6.

To learn more, see Temporal Super Resolution.