World of Warcraft: Forever raises GPU requirements
Blizzard has announced changes to the system requirements for the upcoming World of Warcraft: Forever. The developer is distinguishing between "minimum specifications" and a "hardware support cutoff," meaning several older GPU architectures will no longer be able to run the game, regardless of their actual performance.
New Memory and Architecture Standards
Under the current World of Warcraft specifications, the minimum requirement is a DirectX 12-capable GPU with at least 3GB of VRAM (including NVIDIA GeForce GTX 900 series and AMD GCN 4th Gen). For Forever, this requirement increases to 4GB of VRAM. The new official minimum starts with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 series, AMD RDNA 1, and Intel Xe2-LPG graphics.
However, there is a distinction between what Blizzard considers suitable for play and what is technically capable of running the engine. The company stated that World of Warcraft: Forever will still run on hardware that falls below the official minimum but meets specific technical criteria. This includes AMD GCN 1 GPUs from 2012, NVIDIA Maxwell GPUs from 2014, and Intel Skylake graphics from 2015.
The Technical Driver: Compute Shaders
The shift is driven by a specific technical requirement rather than raw power: the need for RGBA16F UAV support in compute shaders to power the updated visuals in World of Warcraft: Forever. Any GPU lacking this feature will be unsupported, even if it meets other performance metrics.
This change will impact several legacy models. Specifically, support for the Kepler architecture is being dropped, affecting GeForce GTX 760, GTX 770, and GTX 780 cards. Meanwhile, older but compatible hardware like the 2012 Radeon HD 7850, GeForce GTX 750, and GTX 750 Ti will remain functional. For Intel integrated graphics, HD Graphics 530 (Skylake) will stay supported, while the HD Graphics 6000 series will fall below the cutoff.
The global launch of World of Warcraft: Forever is set for November 4, 2026. Access will be available to players with an active WoW subscription or Game Time.
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