System requirements for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PC revealed

What you need to know:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) will release on Oct. 28, but players will be able to preload the game on PC beginning on Oct. 26.
• Beenox has served as the lead developers for the PC port of MW2 (2022).
• The system requirements are grouped into four categories: Minimum, Recommended, Competitive, and Ultra 4K.
• The in-house anti-cheat system, RICOCHET Anti-Cheat, will launch with the game on day one.

Week Zero of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) is about to kick off, with players who have digitally preordered the highly anticipated first-person shooter having the option to preload the campaign as part of an early access promotion beginning on Oct. 19. If you’re planning to pick up Modern Warfare 2 (2022) for PC, however, you may want to take a look at the system requirements recently revealed by lead developers on the PC port, Beenox.

To help players understand what type of performance they can expect from their gaming rigs Beenox’s announcement of system requirements for Modern Warfare 2 were broken down into 4 helpful categories: Minimum, recommended, competitive, and ultra 4K. The bar for entry to Modern Warfare 2 is relatively low, with bare minimum specs requiring players to have an Intel I3-6100 or Core I5-2500K or an AMD Ryzen 3 1200 as their CPU, 4GB of RAM, 72GB of storage space, and either a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card. 

Gamers looking to pull 60FPS on High settings under most circumstances may want to ensure they meet the recommended system requirements of an Intel Core I5-6600K or Core I7-4770 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1400 for their CPU with 6GB of RAM and 72GB of storage space.  For GPU power, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580 is recommended. 

Players looking for a competitive edge may want to their rig upgraded even further still. Beenox recommends an Intel Core I7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X for the CPU with 16GB of RAM and 72GB of storage space. A NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT are recommended for gamers looking to get high refresh rates in a competitive setting.

Lastly, players that want to experience Modern Warfare 2 at Ultra 4K with a high FPS count will want to ensure they have an Intel Core I9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 5 3900X along with 16GB of RAM and 72GB of storage space. System requirements for the GPU at the Ultra 4K level are the most demanding of all tiers, with players needing a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD RADEON RX 6800 XT.  Regardless of which tier your PC gaming setup falls into, Beenox recommends having the last NVIDIA or AMD driver. 

Windows 10 with the latest update is the bare minimum for operating systems, though for recommended, competitive, and ultra 4K players Beenox recommends Windows 11 with the latest update. A broadband connection and DIRECTX 12 compatibility are also required. Up to 32GB of additional disk space will be required for users who take advantage of the Hi-Rez assets cache to stream high resolution assets. 4K players can expect the Hi-Rez assets cache to require an additional 64GB of storage space. The Hi-Rez assets cache can be disabled in the settings, however.  These specs may also change in the future as updates and new content add bulk to MW2’s file size.

PC players can expect the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system to be in place for Modern Warfare 2 at the time of the game’s release on Oct. 28. RICOCHET has previously been in a beta state, and it’s launch with Modern Warfare 2 will be the first time the kernel-level security system is fully functional. Despite not functioning at full speed, RICOCHET Anti-Cheat was responsible for banning more than 60,000 illicit accounts prior to the Modern Warfare 2 (2022) open beta. During the beta period an additional 20,000 accounts were removed. 

In addition to RICOCHET Anti-Cheat, the security teams for Modern Warfare 2 (2022) have opted to add SMS verification to Activision accounts that playing the game via PC. The SMS policy for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 will mimic the existing policy for Warzone on PC which has been in effect since May of 2020. A postpaid mobile phone number will need to be linked to your Steam or Activision account in order to access the game. The policy is also similar to one that is currently causing problems for players of Overwatch 2.