Can I Run Galactic Civilizations III?
Stardock Entertainment released Galactic Civilizations III in 2015. It is a strategy game, self published by the studio. The game supports a single player campaign and cooperative play. It is old enough that no current GPU generation existed when it shipped, so modern hardware tends to be far past what it can use. With more than 8 thousand player reviews on Steam, its behaviour on real hardware is well documented. Its Metacritic score stands at 81. Steam Workshop support means community content is part of the picture, and a heavy mod load can push the real requirements past anything the publisher lists. It is a Windows title, so the requirements below are the Windows ones. There are 102 achievements to chase.
Can your PC run it? →System requirements
Minimum requirements
| CPU | 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / AMD K10 Dual-Core |
|---|---|
| GPU | 512 MB DirectX 10.1 Video Card (AMD Radeon HD5x00 Series / Nvidia GeForce 500 Series / Intel HD 4000 or later) |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Storage | 12 GB HDD |
| DirectX | Version 10 |
Recommended requirements
| CPU | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 Processor or Equivalent |
|---|---|
| GPU | 1 GB DirectX 10.1 Video Card |
| RAM | 6 GB |
| Storage | 15 GB HDD |
| DirectX | Version 10 |
Verified from Steam · 19 Jul 2026 source
Scores are deterministic, computed by fixed rules and benchmark tables, not written by an AI. How we score. Maintained by Farhad Ali. Spotted a wrong specification? Tell us.
Setting and environment
Players spend their time in a science fiction setting, moving through a board the player reads before committing. The publisher supplies 6 storefront screenshots of these environments. The view is in three dimensions.
Why Galactic Civilizations III is demanding
Galactic Civilizations III makes almost no demand of the graphics card. Nearly any machine built in the last decade clears the stated 1 GB DirectX 10.1 Video Card target. The install is small at roughly 15 GB. Galactic Civilizations III needs only 6 GB of RAM. It targets DirectX 10, an older feature level that almost anything still running will satisfy.
This reading comes from the published requirements and our own benchmark tables, not from the store listing.
Can you run Galactic Civilizations III?
Galactic Civilizations III is light on hardware. Its minimum, 512 MB DirectX 10.1 Video Card (AMD Radeon HD5x00 Series / Nvidia GeForce 500 Series / Intel HD 4000 or later), 4 GB RAM, about 12 GB free, sits below what an entry-level PC ships with today, so nearly any modern machine, and many older ones, will run it.
Bottleneck: CPU
Projected by resolution
| Resolution | Projection | Headroom |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p | Comfortable | 48.57x |
| 1440p | Comfortable | 27.32x |
| 4K | Comfortable | 12.14x |
A projection, not a measurement. We scale the published GPU requirement by pixel count, since 1440p draws 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p and 4K draws 4 times as many, then compare against RTX 3060 / Ryzen 5 build. The publisher did not state a target resolution, so 1080p is assumed as the baseline. We hold no frame rate data, so no FPS figure is claimed. Headroom above 1 means the reference machine has room to spare at that resolution.
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Frequently asked questions
Can my PC run Galactic Civilizations III?
Upload your DxDiag file to Idxdiag's free checker and get a component by component compatibility verdict for Galactic Civilizations III in seconds. No install required.
What are the minimum system requirements for Galactic Civilizations III?
The minimum requirements are CPU: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / AMD K10 Dual-Core; GPU: 512 MB DirectX 10.1 Video Card (AMD Radeon HD5x00 Series / Nvidia GeForce 500 Series / Intel HD 4000 or later); 4 GB RAM.
How much storage does Galactic Civilizations III need?
Galactic Civilizations III needs about 12 GB of HDD storage.
What is the bottleneck for Galactic Civilizations III?
On a typical modern PC (Ryzen 5 5600, RTX 3060, 16 GB RAM), the tightest component for Galactic Civilizations III is the CPU.