After the rest of the competition has disappointed, theme park fans' attention inevitably turned to the hugely promising Planet Coaster. It's under development at Frontier, the fine folks behind RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Elite: Dangerous, so it's most certainly got some pedigree. It's been loitering around in Alpha form for some time now, with promising murmurings from those who've played it. Frontier recently announced a November launch date, and now we've got our hands on the golden ticket - Planet Coaster's official system requirements. Be warned though, this ride isn't for everyone.

Planet Coaster Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit 
• CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 2.8GHz or AMD FX-4300 3.8GHz
• RAM: 8 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2 GB Graphics Memory
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or AMD Radeon HD 7850
• DX: DirectX 11
• HDD: 8GB available hard drive space

Planet Coaster Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 3.4GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz
• RAM: 12 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 4 GB Graphics Memory
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 or AMD Radeon R9 380

Last time around we only had access to the minimum specs for Planet Coaster. These remain unchanged, but they're now joining by a towering set of recommended system requirements. Planet Coaster's larger theme parks are sure to be a stern test for even the most capable CPUs, so Frontier recommends you have a least an Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-8350. These are both towards the high end of the scale, but will really come into play should you set Planet Coaster to a high level of detail and zoom the camera out.

Elsewhere 12GB memory is quite unusual, and we doubt many people are rocking this, but I suspect 8GB should more than suffice in this particular instance.

Then there's the small matter of the recommended graphics cards. There's a pretty large disparity in performance between the GeForce GTX 980 and the Radeon R9 380, not least a $350 different in MSRP. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980 is a far more powerful graphics card, but Team Green's skimping on GDDR5 video memory has come back to bit it her. A full 4GB is likely a necessity for High texture details, ruling out the GTX 970 and handing the advantage to AMD. A cheaper alternative would be the 6GB GeForce GTX 1060.

Remember, you can always check out how well your PC can run the Planet Coaster Requirements here, where you can check benchmarking and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the Planet Coaster GPU benchmark chart.