How to Get Your PC Ready for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Before October 16
Modern Warfare 4 requires 115GB of storage, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot just to launch. Here's what to check on specs, drivers and handhelds before October 16.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 opens Campaign Early Access on October 16 and goes fully live on October 23, and Activision has now published the full set of PC requirements alongside a dedicated PC trailer and tech breakdown. Infinity Ward is building the game with PC lead developer Beenox, and between a 115 GB install, mandatory security hardware and a stack of new upscaling options, there's real prep work worth doing before launch day rather than after a disappointing first boot.
Know Your Tier: Minimum, Recommended and Ray Tracing Specs
Activision's official system requirements page lists three tiers rather than the usual two. Minimum needs a Ryzen 5 1400 or Core i5-6600, 8 GB of RAM and a GTX 970/1060-class card with 3 GB of video memory just to launch the game. Recommended, aimed at 90 FPS in multiplayer on High settings, steps up to a Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i7-8700, 16 GB of RAM and an RTX 3060 Ti, Radeon RX 6600 XT or Intel Arc B580 with 8 GB of video memory. A third Ray Tracing tier targets 4K with upscaling and High quality ray tracing, calling for a Ryzen 7 3700X or Core i7-10700K, 32 GB of RAM and either an RTX 5070 Ti or Radeon RX 9070 XT with 16 GB of video memory.
- Minimum: Ryzen 5 1400 / Core i5-6600, 8 GB RAM, GTX 970 or 1060 / RX 470 / Arc A580, 115 GB SSD
- Recommended (90 FPS multiplayer): Ryzen 5 3600 / Core i7-8700, 16 GB RAM, RTX 3060 Ti / RX 6600 XT / Arc B580
- Ray Tracing (4K upscaled): Ryzen 7 3700X / Core i7-10700K, 32 GB RAM, RTX 5070 Ti / RX 9070 XT, 16 GB VRAM
Make Room and Switch On TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot
All three tiers call for an SSD with 115 GB free at launch, and Activision notes that mandatory updates can push that figure higher, so this is a good week to clear out old game installs. More importantly, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are hard requirements for every PC player, not just a recommendation. They're part of how RICOCHET Anti-Cheat enforces its hardware-based protections, and the game simply won't start without them enabled. Most PCs built in the last few years have both available in the BIOS/UEFI menu but switched off by default, so it's worth checking now rather than discovering it on launch night. Activision has posted a walkthrough for enabling TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot for players who need to turn them on manually.
Grab the Right Graphics Driver Before October 16
Activision is publishing recommended driver versions alongside the requirements: AMD 26.7.1, Intel 32.0.101.8974, and NVIDIA 616.56, with a separate note that an Advanced Shader Delivery-compatible NVIDIA driver is scheduled to land on October 21, just ahead of full launch, specifically to support MW4's precompiled-shader loading system. Advanced Shader Delivery (formerly called Shader Preloading) ships precompiled shaders to supported PC platforms ahead of time so the game launches faster after install and after updates; Activision recommends installing the Xbox PC app ahead of time to take advantage of it, even if you're buying through Steam or Battle.net. Whichever platform you're on, don't skip the driver update — it's doing more work than usual this time around.
Match Your Upscaler to Your GPU
Modern Warfare 4 supports four resolution-scaling options at launch: NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR Redstone, Intel XeSS 3, and Filmic SMAA T2X as the default non-upscaled post-process option. Each is tuned to its own hardware rather than being a one-size-fits-all slider, so RTX owners should default to DLSS 4.5, Radeon owners to FSR Redstone, and Arc owners to XeSS 3 before reaching for a generic setting. Ray tracing is supported across Campaign, Multiplayer and DMZ on compatible hardware, and the recommended tier's 90 FPS multiplayer target is designed to hold without players needing to hand-tune every slider themselves — the game auto-configures a baseline from detected hardware, which is a reasonable starting point to benchmark against before making manual changes.
The same update adds several granular settings worth a look regardless of tier: Depth of Field is now split into separate World and Weapon sliders, muzzle effects are dynamically masked at the point of aim so targets stay visible, and a new sharpness slider applies globally across whichever upscaler is active. None of these require a powerful rig to use — they're clarity options as much as performance ones, and worth a pass on any tier of hardware.
Preload Early and Run the Benchmark Tool
PC preloading opens October 15 at 9 AM PT for anyone who has digitally pre-ordered or pre-purchased, ahead of Campaign Early Access starting the next day and the full release on October 23. Once installed, Modern Warfare 4 includes a built-in Benchmark Tool that runs a simulated multiplayer sequence and reports Average FPS, CPU and GPU load, ping and input latency in real time, followed by a zone-by-zone breakdown with setting suggestions. It's a faster way to find your actual bottleneck than guessing from a settings menu, and worth running once with default auto-configured settings and again after any manual changes to confirm they actually helped.
What This Means for Handheld Players
Activision hasn't published Steam Deck or SteamOS compatibility notes for Modern Warfare 4, and there's a real reason for the silence: TPM 2.0, Secure Boot and RICOCHET's hardware-based checks are Windows security features that SteamOS's Linux and Proton layer isn't built to satisfy the way a native Windows installation is. That doesn't rule out handhelds outright — a Windows-based device like a ROG Ally X or Legion Go, running Windows 11 and clearing the minimum CPU, RAM and GPU bar listed above, has a real shot at the same install the requirements page describes. It does mean this isn't a game to assume will "just work" on whatever handheld you already own, and anyone planning to play portably should budget for a Windows-native setup rather than SteamOS. Everything else here, from the driver versions to the Steam listing itself, applies the same way on a handheld as it does on a desktop.
Official links
Lena tests the hardware that games run on, from handheld thermals to controller latency. If a spec sheet is doing something suspicious, she has already opened the device.
