Can I Run Hearts of Iron IV?
Released in 2016, Hearts of Iron IV is a simulation strategy game built by Paradox Development Studio. Publishing duties went to Paradox Interactive. It offers a single player campaign and cooperative play. There are 293 achievements to chase. Over 279 thousand players have left a Steam review, so this is a title whose performance is widely reported. Progress follows the account through Steam Cloud rather than sitting on one disk. 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. Its Metacritic score stands at 83. It is localised into 10 languages according to the store listing. Builds exist for macOS and Linux as well as Windows. 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.
Can your PC run it? →System requirements
Minimum requirements
| CPU | Intel® Core™ i5 750 | AMD® FX 4300 |
|---|---|
| GPU | Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 470 (1.28GB) | AMD® HD 5850 (1GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) | AMD® Radeon™ RX Vega 11 |
| VRAM | 28 GB |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Storage | 2 GB |
| OS | Windows® 10 Home 64 Bit |
| DirectX | 9 |
Recommended requirements
| CPU | Intel® Core™ i5 2500K | AMD® Ryzen 3 2200G |
|---|---|
| GPU | Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 570 (1.28GB) | AMD® Radeon™ HD 7970 (3GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) |
| VRAM | 28 GB |
| RAM | 6 GB |
| Storage | 2 GB |
| OS | Windows® 10 Home 64 bit |
| DirectX | 9 |
Verified from Steam · 9 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 the Second World War, moving through a map at national or global scale. 6 storefront images show what the game actually looks like in motion.
Why Hearts of Iron IV is demanding
Hearts of Iron IV barely touches the GPU. Its stated Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 (1 target is below anything currently sold. A 64 bit version of Windows is required. Disk footprint is light, near 2 GB. Hearts of Iron IV wants 28 GB of video memory, which is the number that will exclude otherwise capable cards. The DirectX requirement is undemanding, at version 9. Hearts of Iron IV needs only 6 GB of RAM.
This reading comes from the published requirements and our own benchmark tables, not from the store listing.
Can you run Hearts of Iron IV?
Video memory is the deciding factor for Hearts of Iron IV: it calls for around 28 GB of VRAM, so a fast card with too little memory will hitch where a slower card with more will not. Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 470 (1.28GB) | AMD® HD 5850 (1GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) | AMD® Radeon™ RX Vega 11 covers the minimum; the CPU and RAM asks are ordinary by comparison.
Bottleneck: VRAM
High VRAM. Hearts of Iron IV calls for more than 8 GB of video memory (28 GB); cards with less will struggle.
Projected by resolution
| Resolution | Projection | Headroom |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p | Comfortable | 6.54x |
| 1440p | Comfortable | 3.68x |
| 4K | Comfortable | 1.63x |
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.
Common GPUs
| Graphics card | Verdict |
|---|---|
| GTX 1060 6 GB | Below minimum |
| GTX 1060 Laptop | Below minimum |
| GTX 1650 4 GB | Below minimum |
| GTX 1650 Laptop | Below minimum |
| RTX 2060 6 GB | Below minimum |
| RTX 2060 Laptop | Below minimum |
| RTX 3060 12 GB | Below minimum |
| RTX 3060 Laptop | Below minimum |
| RTX 4060 8 GB | Below minimum |
| RTX 4060 Laptop | Below minimum |
| RTX 3070 8 GB | Below minimum |
| RTX 3070 Laptop | Below minimum |
| RTX 4070 12 GB | Below minimum |
| RTX 4070 Laptop | Below minimum |
| RX 6600 8 GB | Below minimum |
Each card is compared against Hearts of Iron IV's published GPU requirement, assuming an otherwise-capable PC. Laptop rows use the real mobile chip's benchmark, a mobile GPU is always slower than its desktop namesake.
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Frequently asked questions
Can my PC run Hearts of Iron IV?
Upload your DxDiag file to Idxdiag's free checker and get a component by component compatibility verdict for Hearts of Iron IV in seconds. No install required.
What are the minimum system requirements for Hearts of Iron IV?
The minimum requirements are CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 750 | AMD® FX 4300; GPU: Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 470 (1.28GB) | AMD® HD 5850 (1GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) | AMD® Radeon™ RX Vega 11; 4 GB RAM; OS: Windows® 10 Home 64 Bit.
How much storage does Hearts of Iron IV need?
Hearts of Iron IV needs about 2 GB of available storage.
Can an RTX 3060 run Hearts of Iron IV?
The RTX 3060 falls below Hearts of Iron IV's minimum GPU requirement, so it isn't recommended for this title.
What is the bottleneck for Hearts of Iron IV?
On a typical modern PC (Ryzen 5 5600, RTX 3060, 16 GB RAM), the tightest component for Hearts of Iron IV is the VRAM.