Dragon Age: The Veilguard PC requirements revealed, no third-party DRM or preloading on PC

Something to look forward to: We're only a few weeks away from the launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which means the full PC system requirements have been revealed by Electronic Arts. EA has also confirmed that unlike console owners, PC users won't have the option of preloading the game. That might annoy some, but the upside is that the reason for this is Veilguard's lack of any third-party DRM, such as Denuvo.

Starting with the hardware requirements, Dragon Age: The Veilguard's lowest setting – 1080p/30 fps, graphics preset low – is pretty forgiving, asking for just a Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and GTX 970/GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon R9 290X.

The requirements become a bit more demanding at the recommended level of 1440p/30 fps or 1080p/60 fps, graphics preset high: a Core i9 9900K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X combined with an RTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700XT. The RTX 3060 remains the most popular card among Steam survey participants, so plenty of people should manage this one.

The final Ultra level, which is 2160p@60fps with Ultra graphics presets, asks for either a Core i9 12900K or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and an RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

EA has also included all the spec requirements for the different ray tracing options, which obviously push up the demands. See the full list below.

One consistent demand across all levels is 16GB of RAM and 100GB of SSD space.

At Gamescom 2024, Nvidia announced that Veilguard will be one of the upcoming games to feature DLSS and RTX technologies.

Ray Tracing Off

Minimum (1080p/30 fps, graphics preset low)

• CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 (6 cores/6 threads) or AMD Ryzen 3 3300X (4 cores/8 threads)
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 970/GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon R9 290X
• VRAM: 4GB
• Storage: 100GB, SSD recommended

Recommended (1440p/30 fps or 1080p/60 fps, graphics preset high)

• CPU: Intel Core i9 9900K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8 cores/16 threads)
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
• VRAM: 8GB
• Storage: 100GB, SSD required

Ultra (2160p/60 fps, graphics preset ultra)

• CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (16 cores/24 threads)
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• VRAM: 12GB
• Storage: 100GB, SSD required

Ray Tracing On

RT Selective (2160p/30 fps or 1440p/60 fps, graphics preset ultra)

• CPU: Intel Core i9 9900K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8 cores/16 threads)
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800XT
• VRAM: 10GB
• Storage: 100GB, SSD required

RT On (1440p/30 fps, graphics preset ultra)

• CPU: Intel Core i9 9900K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8 cores/16 threads)
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800XT
• VRAM: 10GB
• Storage: 100GB, SSD required

RT On + Ultra RT (2160p/30 fps, graphics preset ultra)

• CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (16 cores/24 threads)
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• VRAM: 12GB
• Storage: 100GB, SSD required

Click to enlarge

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has two elements you don't often see in games these days: it is a single-player-only game that can be played entirely offline, and you won't find any third-party DRM included. Both factors will likely please players, especially the lack of DRM such as Denuvo, which can impact a game's performance. You won't need to use the EA App to play it, either.

EA never explained why it isn't including third-party DRM in Dragon Age. It was recently found that games experience a 20% revenue drop if Denuvo is cracked soon after launch. However, no revenue is lost if the DRM remains uncracked for 12 weeks. It's why some companies remove Denuvo from titles months after launch, something EA did with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

PC owners can start downloading Dragon Age: The Veilguard at 9 am PT/12 pm ET on October 31. Xbox Series X/S owners can preload it on October 14th 9AM PDT, while PS5 owners have to wait until October 29th 9AM PDT.