BattleTech has been flying so far under my radar it's barely registered as a blip. Until I laid eyes on it that is. From the tantalising duo of Harebrained Schemes (Shadowrun) and Paradox Interactive, BattleTech just screams hardcore tactical strategy. It's a turn-based mech combat game at heart, one in which MechWarriors can be customised down to the smallest nuts and bolts, while terrain, position, weapon selection and special abilities all must be mastered in order to outplay your opponents.

In true Paradox form, Battletech looks hideously deep. It's a fair bit more demanding than their typical grand strategy games though, here are BattleTech PC requirements.

BattleTech Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i3-3210 3.2GHz or AMD FX-4300 3.8 GHz
• RAM: 8 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 660 or Radeon HD 7850
• HDD: 25GB Available Hard Drive Space
• API: DirectX 11

BattleTech Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-3450 3.1 GHz or AMD FX-6300 3.5 GHz
• RAM: 16 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7950
• HDD: 60GB Available Hard Drive Space
• API: DirectX 11

While the vast majority of the system requirements for BattleTech are well within reason, it's important to keep an eye on the recommended RAM and installation size. Harebrained suggest 8GB RAM as the absolute minimum, and 16GB recommended, which is right at the high end, particularly for a turn-based strategy game. For the install size, players will at least get the choice between a 25GB and 60GB install size for BattleTech. Specifics haven't been revealed on this, but it likely relates to improved texture and audio quality for those willing to go for the larger download.

Everything else is par for the course though. BattleTech only requires modest, and pretty old graphics cards to get up and running. A GeForce GTX 660 or Radeon HD 7850 will do for the minimum specs, while a mid to low-tier GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7850 will allow users to crank the graphics settings to max, presumably at 1080p resolution.

On the CPU front, depending on the complexity of the battles, a faster CPU is going to help with quicker AI turn times, as is the case with Civilization. It's unclear how many mechs can be involved in battles, but the more there are, the longer the AI is going to take to compute its moves. The minimum CPUs likely won't bottleneck frames per second in a detrimental way. 

As ever, remember you can always check out how well your PC can run the BattleTech System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarking and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the BattleTech GPU benchmark chart and we also have a BattleTech Frames Per Second system performance chart for you to check.