Permafrost System Requirements: Minimum and Recommended

Short answer: Permafrost needs a 64-bit Windows 10 system with 16 GB of RAM and 30 GB of free storage at both tiers. The minimum build asks for an Intel Core i5-8600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3500 and an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 590 8GB on DirectX 11; the recommended build raises that to an Intel Core i5-12400 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and an RTX 3070 Ti 8GB or RX 6750 XT 12GB on DirectX 12.

The full requirements table

The Steam store listing publishes two tiers, minimum and recommended. No other hardware figure has been published by the developer, so these are the only official numbers to work from.

Minimum requirements in detail

The minimum tier is a 64-bit processor and operating system, Windows 10 (x64), an Intel Core i5-8600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3500, 16 GB of RAM, an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 590 8GB, DirectX 11, and 30 GB of available storage.

Two details are worth flagging. The CPU floor is a six-core part — the i5-8600K and Ryzen 5 3500 are both six-core desktop chips — so an older quad-core may struggle even if its clocks look comparable. And the graphics floor is a 6 GB or 8 GB card, which rules out most entry-level cards from the same era.

Recommended requirements in detail

The recommended tier keeps Windows 10 (x64), 16 GB of RAM and 30 GB of storage, but moves the processor up to an Intel Core i5-12400 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and the graphics card to an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti 8GB or AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB. It also raises the DirectX target from 11 to 12.

The jump from a GTX 1060 to an RTX 3070 Ti is a large one, so the recommended tier is best read as "comfortable 1080p at higher settings" rather than a modest step above minimum. If you are somewhere between the two cards — a GTX 1660 Super, RTX 2060, RX 6600 and similar — you should expect the game to run, but you are in the untested middle ground.

What the numbers actually mean

16 GB of RAM is the floor, not a suggestion. There is no 8 GB tier in the listing. If your machine has 8 GB, adding RAM is the single cheapest upgrade that moves you toward the minimum line.

Storage is 30 GB in both tiers. The install size does not drop by lowering your settings or skipping the recommended textures, because the figure is identical at minimum and recommended. Plan for 30 GB of free space on the drive you install to, and leave some headroom for patches — the game was patched on both October 9 and October 10 alone.

DirectX 11 versus 12 is a compatibility detail, not a performance tier — but it is not a free fallback either. The minimum lists DirectX 11 and the recommended lists DirectX 12, and a machine that meets the recommended spec will default to DirectX 12. The game shipped with a launch option to force DirectX 11, which the developer offers as a troubleshooting step for crashes. The same documentation is explicit that DirectX 11 runs slower than DirectX 12 and that this is expected behaviour, so treat forcing 11 as a stabilising trade-off to undo once the crashes stop, not as a setting you keep.

A DirectX 12-capable GPU is effectively required at the recommended tier. Cards that only speak DirectX 11 can still run the minimum configuration, but they are outside the recommended path by definition.

How to check whether your PC meets the specs

You can read your own hardware in Windows without installing anything:

• Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, then open the Performance tab. The CPU, Memory and GPU panels name your exact processor, your installed RAM in GB, and your graphics card.
• For the Windows build, open Settings → System → About and read the edition and version. You need 64-bit Windows 10 or newer.
• For free disk space, open File Explorer → This PC and check the free space on the drive you would install to.
• For your DirectX version, press Windows key + R, type dxdiag, and read the DirectX Version line on the System tab.

Match what you find against the table above, and compare the GPU by its model name plus VRAM, not just the model name — the 6 GB GTX 1060 and the 3 GB GTX 1060 are different cards for this purpose.

What to upgrade first if you fall short

If you are below the line, the order that usually gives the most value is memory first, then GPU, then CPU.

RAM is the cheapest and most common shortfall, because the floor is 16 GB. Going from 8 GB to 16 GB is a small purchase and it is the requirement most likely to be blocking an otherwise-capable machine.

GPU comes next. The minimum tier names a 6 GB card, so an older 2 GB or 4 GB card is the second most likely blocker. VRAM matters here as much as raw speed.

CPU is last, because the listed processors are mid-range desktop parts and many machines that fall short on paper still run the game acceptably. It is also the most expensive part to change, since it can drag a new motherboard and memory along with it.

Storage is rarely the problem if you have 30 GB free, but install to an SSD rather than a mechanical drive if you have the choice — open-world survival games stream assets constantly, and slow storage shows up as stutter.

Early Access caveats before you buy on specs alone

Meeting the requirements does not guarantee a smooth first week. Permafrost entered Windows Early Access on October 9, 2026, and player feedback in the days after launch centred on technical issues: crashes, stutter and inconsistent visuals, plus a climbing system some players found insensitive and a pickup system that requires aiming a crosshair at an item. Several complaints concerned the Simplified Chinese font and untranslated text.

The developer responded with rapid patches. A hotfix on October 9 disabled FSR on RTX 40 and 50 series cards to reduce crashes there, and an October 10 update fixed several crash causes, improved the friends' server list, and changed quest items so they are no longer removed from the world after pickup. If you are on a higher-end Nvidia card, that FSR hotfix is directly relevant to you.

The workarounds the developer published alongside those patches — the -dx11 launch option, the Smart App Control fix for error 11c7, and the rest — are collected on our Permafrost known issues page, and the fixes themselves are itemised on our patch notes page.

Because the game is still in development, the developer warns that content is incomplete and may change, and recommends waiting if you would rather not play a game mid-development.

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