Despite being nearly a decade old, Minecraft is a game that has taken the world unexpectedly by storm. Who knew repeating square blocks could make up such a widely-appealing game concept?
Minecraft has been used for everything from learning to code, to making artwork, to building programs inside the game itself!
Despite being around for a long time, Minecraft still isn’t particularly easy on computers. While the graphics themselves aren’t complicated, there’s so much of them to load that some lighter machines can’t handle it.
We’ll go over these limitations in more depth below.
Let’s get started!
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About
Minecraft utilizes two distinct game modes: creative mode and survival mode. Survival Mode is the survival version of the game. Players enter a new world with nothing in their inventory, and they must gather resources to progress, protect themselves from monsters, and eventually defeat the end boss, known as the Ender Dragon.
While players have a large amount of agency and ability in survival mode, Creative Mode is where the sandbox aspect of the game comes in. Players have access to a full catalog of all of the blocks, mobs, and resources available in the game, and they can use them to build structures, create murals, and even build working machines.
- Release Date: November 18th, 2011
- Platforms: PC (Windows, macOS, Linux), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, Fire OS, Windows Phone
- Genre: Sandbox, Survival
- Developer: Mojang
- Publisher: Mojang, Xbox Game Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment
System Benchmarks
Minimum System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7 (64-bit) or later
- CPU: Intel Core i3 3210 / AMD A8 7600 APU or equivalent
- RAM: 4 GB
- GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4000 or AMD Radeon R5 series / NVIDIA GeForce 400 Series or AMD Radeon HD 7000 series
- HDD: 180 MB – 1 GB
Recommended System Requirements
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: Intel Core i5 4690 / AMD A10 7800 or equivalent
- RAM: 8 GB
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 700 Series / AMD Radeon Rx 200 Series
- HDD: 4 GB (SSD recommended)
Optimal PC Builds
While nearly any modern PC can run Minecraft, the difference between dedicated and discrete graphics cards will be whether your PC can run it well or not. There are a lot of chunks and blocks to load in Minecraft, so older PCs, especially those with outdated RAM and CPUs, will have trouble loading things quickly.
However, any PC with a dedicated graphics card, competitive RAM, and a robust CPU will be able to run the game pretty easily.
Do note, though, that there are hundreds of different mods that can be installed to the Java Edition of Minecraft. For each mod that is installed, Ram and CPU processing power become more and more valuable.
As such, if you’re looking to make use of things like texture and shader packs, you may want to stick with an upper-tier to mid-tier PC rather than a budget computer.
