Can I Run No Man's Sky?
No Man's Sky is an action adventure game from Hello Games, released in 2016. Hello Games both developed and published it. It offers a single player campaign and cooperative play. Full controller support is present, so nothing needs configuring before a pad works. Its Metacritic score stands at 61. Cloud saves are enabled. 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. Completionists have 27 achievements to work through. With more than 310 thousand player reviews on Steam, its behaviour on real hardware is well documented. It is not Windows only, with macOS covered too. It is localised into 14 languages according to the store listing.
Can your PC run it? →System requirements
Minimum requirements
| CPU | Intel Core i3 |
|---|---|
| GPU | Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB, AMD RX 470 4GB, Intel UHD graphics 630 |
| VRAM | 3 GB |
| RAM | 8 GB |
| Storage | 15 GB |
| OS | Windows 10/11 (64-bit versions) |
Single source, verify with the publisher 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 space and the vessels that cross it, moving through one continuous open world. That openness is what costs performance. No Man's Sky has no loading walls to hide behind, so terrain and detail keep flowing in as the player moves. The publisher supplies 181 storefront screenshots of these environments. It is played from a first person view.
Why No Man's Sky is demanding
No Man's Sky makes almost no demand of the graphics card. Nearly any machine built in the last decade clears the stated Nvidia GTX 1060 target. Video memory is not the constraint here, at 3 GB. No Man's Sky takes about 15 GB of disk space. A 64 bit version of Windows is required. No Man's Sky needs only 8 GB of RAM.
This reading comes from the published requirements and our own benchmark tables, not from the store listing.
Can you run No Man's Sky?
No Man's Sky is light on hardware. Its minimum, Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB, AMD RX 470 4GB, Intel UHD graphics 630, 8 GB RAM, about 15 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: GPU
Projected by resolution
| Resolution | Projection | Headroom |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p | Comfortable | 14.17x |
| 1440p | Comfortable | 7.97x |
| 4K | Comfortable | 3.54x |
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 | Runs great |
| GTX 1060 Laptop | Runs great |
| GTX 1650 4 GB | Runs great |
| GTX 1650 Laptop | Runs great |
| RTX 2060 6 GB | Runs great |
| RTX 2060 Laptop | Runs great |
| RTX 3060 12 GB | Runs great |
| RTX 3060 Laptop | Runs great |
| RTX 4060 8 GB | Runs great |
| RTX 4060 Laptop | Runs great |
| RTX 3070 8 GB | Runs great |
| RTX 3070 Laptop | Runs great |
| RTX 4070 12 GB | Runs great |
| RTX 4070 Laptop | Runs great |
| RX 6600 8 GB | Runs great |
Each card is compared against No Man's Sky'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 No Man's Sky?
Upload your DxDiag file to Idxdiag's free checker and get a component by component compatibility verdict for No Man's Sky in seconds. No install required.
What are the minimum system requirements for No Man's Sky?
The minimum requirements are CPU: Intel Core i3; GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB, AMD RX 470 4GB, Intel UHD graphics 630; 8 GB RAM; OS: Windows 10/11 (64-bit versions).
How much storage does No Man's Sky need?
No Man's Sky needs about 15 GB of available storage.
Can an RTX 3060 run No Man's Sky?
The RTX 3060 runs No Man's Sky comfortably, clearing the title's GPU requirement with room to spare.
What is the bottleneck for No Man's Sky?
On a typical modern PC (Ryzen 5 5600, RTX 3060, 16 GB RAM), the tightest component for No Man's Sky is the GPU.