Planetside 2 is better than Battlefield 3. Thats the hype surrounding this giant of an online shooter. Its a sprawling sci-fi multiplayer with a huge war that ebbs and flows. Also we have some inside info on what the Planetside 2 system requirements are going to be.

This game will hopefully run on a broad spectrum of machines, including some laptops. But, and that's a big but, despite the lower entry curve, Planetside 2 is likely to have some features that will actually utilise the sheer power of some of those modern CPUs. You know, the ones that are gathering dusty from lack of a real work out. So here are the Planetside 2 System Requirements...

Planetside 2 Minimum System Requirements

OS: Windows XP(SP3), Windows Vista(SP2), or Windows 7

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz / AMD Athlon X2 running at 2.2 GHz

RAM: 2GB Memory

GPU RAM: DirectX 9.0c compatible, 256 MB of VRAM

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 / AMD Radeon HD 3870 or greater

DX: 9.0c

HD: 7.75GB Free hard drive space and needs 4GB extra free space to play

AUDIO: DirectX 9.0c compatible, 16-bit

Some points of note at the moment

1. The older GeForce 8600 listed in these Planetside 2 specifications is quite a bit less powerful than the HD 3870. We feel this is likely due to some of the obviously Nvidia based features that have been optimised for. Planetside 2 has some neat environmental features like snowstorms that use phsyx. So powering that with your machine wont come cheap when faced with the sheer scale of the maps.

We wanted to double check though, so we pushed this point to John Smedley, CEO of Sony Online Entertainment and he replied super fast, as always - Yes I can confirm, as this game is more catered for Nvidia cards, it will require a AMD 3870.

2. The listed Hard drive space is actual space taken up at the time of writing this article. This can and will obviously shift a little as new patches/updates are rolled out. But, of course, this happens with all games now a days as they often get patches far past the initial sales date.

Planetside 2 Recommended System Requirements

OS: Windows 7

CPU: Intel Core i5-661 3.33GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 910

RAM: 4GB Memory

GPU RAM: 1GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 / AMD Radeon HD 5850 or greater

DX: 11

HD: 7.75GB Free hard drive space and needs 4GB extra free space to play

Here are some publisher notes on the subject -

Performance - this is #1 with a bullet. We have major improvements coming in the upcoming patches. We're aware it's not perfect. As it stands now we know the game needs improving in all areas. We are currently CPU bound which means it's more important what kind of CPU you have versus what kind of graphics card. As I said we have major improvements coming. This isn't magic. It's hard work. Planetside 2 is always going to have a higher end requirement than other similar games because of the scale of fights we have.

Planetside 2 is due out on November 20th and is a PC exclusive and it will be free to play. So we can imagine the GD Warriors will be out in force once the game goes live to everyone.

All the data here will be tweaked over the coming weeks to stay inline with the developers final adjustments to their game before official release. Finally, dont forget to provide your feedback once you get into the game.