Activision details system requirements for Treyarch's new Call of Duty; game requires Windows Vista or newer OS due to DirectX11.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II for PC will not run on Windows XP, Activision has confirmed. Detailing the game's PC specifications on the official Call of Duty website, the publisher announced that the game will require an operating system of Windows Vista or later.
According to Activision, Windows XP is not supported for Black Ops II because the game's engine has been upgraded to use DirectX11, which does not support Windows XP.
Activision also revealed the minimum system requirements for Black Ops II. As mentioned above, gamers will need Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7, as well as an Intel Core2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHz or AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHz CPU. As for memory, players will need at least 2GB for 32-bit OS or 4GB for 64-bit OS. Finally, Black Ops II requires a Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB or ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB video card.
Activision said it has tested Black Ops II "extensively" on minimum specifications, and is "very confident" in the game's performance on those machines. The company also reiterated that the game will run on a new Black Ops engine that boasts a range of improvements, including performance optimization, enhanced graphics, and proprietary anti-cheat technology.
Lastly, Activision confirmed that there will not be a framerate cap for Black Ops II on PC. The game comes with an adjustable frames-per-second cap slider in the game's options, with the minimum setting being "off," meaning there is no cap.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II is due out on November 13 and is a sequel to 2010's original Black Ops, which is the best-selling series entry to date, moving more than 25 million copies as of August 2011. It even outsold the most recent entry in the series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, during July 2012. For more on the upcoming game, check out GameSpot's latest preview.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
This is annoying are you telling me i have to spend more money on a new windows version just to play a game that has the graphics and physics of any other recent call of duty game, the other call of duty's run fine with my PC but this one i was looking forward to playing and i cant.
Windows XP is eleven years old. Were they still making a lot of games that would run on Windows 95 back in 2005? I don't think so. So it's time to move on when it comes to games. However Windows XP is still better for a lot of things and it's a testament to how great an OS it is. Eleven years later and the vast majority of software is made to run on it along with Vista and Windows 7.
2 Like Windows XP had a good run, but it's time to let it go. Windows 7 is a more than worthy successor.
Win7 64bit has been a flawless OS for me so far either way. Not like I planned to buy this game to begin with. You all should upgrade.
This is mostly a Xbox 360 game so this isn't big news, although I suspect that more publishers are going to start to skip Windows XP for consideration (although the large F2P segment which rules PC gaming these days will almost certainly continue to support XP).
If you're still running Windows XP, then you're (a) probably running a computer that doesn't meet these minumum requirements anyway and (b) asking to get owned.
2 Like @theKSMM I got XP and I could run this game no problem. All of these COD games run the same anyway, nothing has really changed.
5 Like @theKSMM not true. I have a top of the line PC that still has win xp and majority of the newest games work incredibly well with the exception of games that need win vista/7. So I call bullshit on you good sir.
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Black Ops II requiring dx11? hahahaha they can't be serious lol
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No worries, I can run youtube just fine on XP and still, watch the whole plot. :) So nothing lost there.
i call BS on this one, all call of duties have been running on the 7 year old CoD2 engine. Enhanced graphics my ass...
1 Like Absolutely do not care one bit. Must be another article by Eddie Makuch. He is probably a really nice guy, but if you can help it, can't you write about non-pointless things?
Call of Duty not going to trick me again, it's only Addictive for the first month, thhen it's not, i played BO and Mw3, i liked it and is a fan of it... but soon after it becomes a routine just like mw3 "War is a routine" quote from ... who was it lol
Got Battlefield but ditched it and went to Mw3 and liked it for a month before ditching it never playing it again. Battlefield seems so much better ...
Why not support Windows XP? I'm crying!! Hope someone can release special of custom unofficial DirectX 10 software for Windows XP to bypass this game check up then get to running and play. Don''t get me wrong someone already release custom unofficial DirectX 10 software out for Windows XP and make Crysis look so wonderful! So beautiful colors in games. Windows XP can run DirectX 10 too!!! Not DirectX 11 yet, unless someone release custom unofficial DirectX 11 software for Windows XP to bypass then game will running on it.
@consoleclassix Once someone created a SDK dx10 for winxp. Good luck configuring winxp to run them
5 Like It's ok Microsoft, I can pirate Windows 7 too. I didn't want to but since you are pushing me...
6 Like Only requires DirectX 9 cards, but requires DirectX 11 OS?
What?
Who wants to bet they've received a large sum payment from Microsoft, so that more people will upgrade to newer OS? If you're going to lie, at least make it believable.
@jorge69696 @SicoWolf MS didnt said that the consoles were DX9 either. X360 is designed from DX9.5 or something, pre-dx 10
1 Like So the game runs dx 11 only but the minimum GPU spec is an nvidia 8800gt? How does that make any sense considering I think the GPU runs only dx 10.1?
I find it an odd decision to change the renderer for the PC version when likely only 10% of the sales will be on PC.
I know very well about WinXP. I was just kidding people, LOL. Geez. I was being sarcastic because of how old it is, wasn't trying to have everybody going crazy. X-(
1 Like Every Battlefield 3 PC gamer uses already Win7 because of the DX11 engine :/ so no big deal here, what bothers me is that the CoD engine is nearly ancient, yes guys its still the Quake 3 Arena one :|
@Printul_Noptii the cod engine has changed a lot over time. If you swap out every part can you really say it's the same engine?
1 Like @shadow580 yes true but still with all their money they milked out of CoD4 and MW2 alone they could develop a new engine, look at monolith they developed a completely new engine for F.E.A.R. and that game was freaking fantastic or Valve with its source engine or ID with its Doom 3 engine. Fact is IW and Treyarch are lazy you can easily tell by their reskinned maps they bring with every CoD.
I am glad they removed the FPS cap and I hope it will run much smoother than Black Ops 1 did run on its start.
Black op II won't be bought by this guy! I'm off the meat wagon with COD. The yearly changes are absolutely not worth it.
what? no win 8 support? :(
anti-cheat technology? but i love using trainers when i play my games. :(
I am having some issues right now so I can't use Windows 7, I am not happy. And please, that outdated engine can run on XP, they just didn't wanna make it for it, probably Microsoft trying to push Windows sales, they do pay to get "favors" from Activision on Xbox, wouldn't be a surprise if they did on PC now with this thing.
@Daian More like the graphical features that they added to the engine require the use of DX11. Volumetric fog etc. The engine while not ground breaking has features that exclude it from running on that archaic OS known as WindowsXP. There should be very few problems on getting a computer that was made since the release of windows Vista to function perfectly on Windows 7. The only issues I can see is if your PC is pre vista and some hardware do not have required drivers ... but if your computer is really that old then its hard to feel bad about it in the first place.
@ColdfireTrilogy It wouldn't be the first game to have 2 DirectX versions, the chose not to make one for XP. And seriously, did anybody actually use Vista? Everybody I know choose to use XP rather than that if W7 isn't an option.
My PC is pretty old but can still run games well enough if they're well optimized, I had 7 for over a year, played games on it (I actually switched to play Just Cause 2 I think) but something happened, won't go into the long boring details but I have to use XP for a probably long undetermined amount of time.
They're making it work on the ancient hardware of the 360 and PS3, there's no reason why they shouldn't offer an W XP version for PC gamers like they have so far.
1 Like Which one to blame COD or Windows XP.In my opinion i dont want to lose windows XP for this ops
2 Like @mediarays @Spartan_418 Windows 7 is a great OS in my opinion, try it out and I bet you'll like it.
[UPDATE] All plans canceled just days before event was to take place.
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