Flight Simulator 2020 wants you to use Pro hardware

Microsoft’s new-generation Flight Simulator 2020 is going to be seriously pretty, but that means you’ll need serious hardware to run it at its top specification. While you won’t need a monster machine just to boot the game if you want to run it flat out, you’re going to need some high-end components, and even some professional grade hardware.

Flight Simulator, the 2020 reboot, is designed to use high-resolution textures, real world mapping data, and even live weather features with supercomputers supersampling some of the prettiest elements and streaming them live to your PC, combining local and remote processing for the first time in a high-end AAA experience. But that means you’ll need a capable PC to enjoy it at full fidelity.

At the low end you’ll need a Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel i5 4460 combined with an RX 570 or GTX 770, and 8GB of RAM. You’ll also want a 5Mbps internet connection to benefit from some of the supersampling efforts.

At the recommended specification level Microsoft suggests a Ryzen 5 1500X or Intel i5 8400 CPU with 16GB of RAM, and an RX 590 or GTX 970. You’ll also want a 20 Mbps internet connection.

At the very top end though, Microsoft’s Flight Simulator is much more demanding. On top of a Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X or Intel i7-9800X, it also wants a Radeon VII or RTX 2080 and 32GB of RAM. The internet connection is even more demanding, at 50Mpbs, with no suggestion that you’ll be able to do anything else on that connection while running the game.

Just how much data will this game demand? It could be more than even Stadia.