UPDATE: AMD has released drivers specifically for the release of Arkham Knight in anticipation of the game's midnight launch. More information and links to the drivers can be had on the Steam storefront. The original article is posted below.
Batman: Arkham Knight is set for launch tomorrow, but WB and Rocksteady today dropped an unfortunate note for PC gamers on the game's Steam page. The minimum system requirements for the game have been altered to include a minimum AMD card that is considerably higher than the normal GTX 660 equivalent. In addition, WB has stated that there are "known issues with the performance of Batman: Arkham Knight for PC owners using AMD graphics cards." WB vows to be working with AMD at the moment to get a driver out to fix some of the issues they've detected.
Of course, Arkham Knight is taking advantage of AMD rival Nvidia's Gameworks tech, which has been known to cause compatibility issues in the past for those without Nvidia cards. The game, as with past Batman games, is being given away with the newest Nvidia graphics cards, and there is a longstanding relationship between the studio and the chipmaker. What is most surprising about the requirements is that the recommended stats list the GeForce GTX 760 as the video card to get, but no AMD equivalent. One might assume that some of those Gameworks features being integrated deeply into the game would be to blame for that. In any case, no one has touched the PC version as it was not sent out early for review, so there is time for last minute fixes despite this announcement.
The requirements for the game are below as taken from the Steam page. Specs that are listed below are current as of this publication. For those AMD owners who no longer fit the bill, it would be wise to take advantage of Steam's new refund policy or contact your retailer to reclaim your lost funds.
MINIMUM: OS: Win 7 SP1, Win 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required) Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz Memory: 6 GB RAM Graphics: Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2 GB Memory Minimum) | AMD Radeon HD 7950 (3 GB Memory Minimum) DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Hard Drive: 45 GB available space
RECOMMENDED: OS: Win 7 SP1, Win 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required) Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 - 3 GB Memory Recommended DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Hard Drive: 55 GB available space
TechRaptor has reached out to WB Games and Rocksteady for further comment and we will update this piece if we get a response.
