This article is dedicated to helping you run WARFRAME with several tips and tools to improve your experience.
The official minimum system requirements[1][2] to run Warframe are:
- Operating System: Windows 7 64-Bit (32-bit not supported)
- Processor: Intel Core i7 860, Intel Core i5 750, or AMD FX-4100 (SSE 4.2 support required)
- Graphics: DirectX 11+ compatible video card
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 50 GB available space
- Internet: Broadband Internet Connection
Please note that these published system requirements (and subsequently, the test above) are only theoretical minimum requirements. Your system may be able to run Warframe with playable frames per second (FPS) outside of these requirements.
For the latest updates, you may also visit Digital Extreme's official minimum system requirements FAQ page.
Note: There is no Mac or Linux client currently available. However, Warframe can run on Linux machines through Steam Proton, albeit with bugs since it is not natively supported. See this site for user-reported performance on Proton.
Tools
A range of tools and utilities you might find useful, all freeware: no trials or payware!
- System Requirements Lab: Testing system requirements.
- Select automatic detection of hardware and accept the applet run request by your browser. The applet will detect your hardware and compare that to the minimum/recommended system requirements.
- HWiNFO: A powerful and popular System Diagnostic Software, it can show you all information about your PC specs, as well as real-time information such as temperatures (incl. peaks and lows), CPU, GPU and RAM speeds, power draw and many others.
- DiskMax: Keep your hard drive clean and remove any unwanted files. A range of scanning profiles for novice to expert users comes with disk defrag.
- Note: never defrag a SSD (Solid State Drives).
- Speccy: An advanced System Information tool for your PC from Piriform. It indicates several information (like speed, temperature) on your processor, hard drive, memory (RAM) and graphics card.
- MSI Afterburner: Can be used to monitor CPU, GPU, RAM and other status on the PC. Can also be used to overclock GPU if the user desires (moderation required to avoid breaking the GPU).
- Ping Monitor: Ping any server/website with live stats.
- Microsoft PC Manager: A PC boosting and storage management software directly from Microsoft itself. Easy to use to quickly "boost" your PC and remove unnecessary leftover files on your PC.
- Leatrix Latency Fix: Online gaming latency issue fix.
- Advanced SystemCare: Advanced program that contains a multitude of tools, much of the tools listed above, all in one package. Includes a RAM Booster to free up extra RAM and a turbo-boost tool to keep unnecessary programs from running and using up space as you play. Basic free version contains most of the features, and upgrading is not necessary.
- TCP Optimizer: For adjusting Windows TCP/IP parameters and network adapter settings.
Tricks & Settings
Some minor adjustments in your Windows OS could improve your overall performance. Here are some listed, but take into account that this is for the advanced users. It is strongly advised to not to attempt the below tricks unless you have some experience. Before proceeding, make sure to do a full backup (system image, registry back up, etc.) in case if anything messes up.
- QoS 100% bandwidth trick doesn't work. This tip made people believe that Microsoft always allocates 20% of your bandwidth for Windows Update or other Windows processes but the claim is false since 100% of the bandwidth is shared across all programs unless a program needs priority bandwidth. Disabling the QoS will only cause a problem to streaming media like YouTube and to VoIP applications. Thus, it is not recommended. Source: Microsoft Support
- Always be sure to keep your graphics card and CPU cool when running, the cooler you run the better the game will run and the less chance of crashes.
References
Patch History
Update 33.0 (2023-04-26)
- PC Supported Specs Change:
As announced in a PSA posted last year, we have changed our minimum specs to require the following CPU features: SSSE3, SSE4.1 and SSE4.2*.
*Your CPU must support SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2.
These are CPU-instructions that were first added to processors like the Intel i7 860 (Nehalem microarchitecture released in 2008) or the AMD FX-4170 (Bulldozer microarchitecture released 2011). As you can see, even computers that are a decade old support these features so you probably have nothing to worry about!
If you’re still rocking the above specs that don't support these instructions, you’ll see a warning in the Warframe launcher so you know it’s time for an upgrade.
These changes will finally let the PC version of the game get optimizations we’ve had on the Xbox and PlayStation versions for years and will make it easier to do more optimizations, since all developers will be using them all day every day (as opposed to only when testing on some consoles).
Update 24.3 (2019-02-27)
- Warframe’s Minimum Supported Spec has changed to Windows 7, 64-bit operating systems, DirectX 10 capable graphics cards, and 4GB of RAM.