Fortnite Season 10 may force you to upgrade your PC

Epic Games has announced a change that'll leave some Fortnite fans frustrated: going forward, the game will not support older graphics cards. The change will go into effect starting with the Season 10 release in August, requiring players to upgrade to a graphics card that supports DirectX 11 or higher. The GPUs are currently listed as 'recommended' for Fortnite, but will become the new minimum requirement later this year.

On the Epic Games website, the company currently lists the minimum Fortnite system requirements as:

- Intel HD 4000 on PC or Intel Iris Pro 5200 on Mac

- Intel Core i3 2.4 GHz

- 4GB RAM

- Windows 7/8/10 64-bit + Mac OSX Sierra (10.12.6+)

- Mac computers must support Metal API

Ideally, however, gamers will have a PC that meets the recommended system requirements:

- Nvidia GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 equivalent DX11 GPU

- 2GB VRAM

- Intel Core i5 2.8 Ghz

- 8GB RAM

- Windows 7/8/10 64-bit + Mac OSX Sierra (10.13.6+)

In an update published on Friday, June 21, Epic said it will start enforcing the DirectX 11 graphics card as a minimum requirement on PC. Players who are using older graphics cards will need to update by the time Fortnite Season 10 arrives in order to keep playing the game on their laptop or desktop, otherwise they'll have to revert to using one of the supported gaming consoles.

The news isn't surprising in light of the limitations caused by supporting older cards, and the new requirement isn't terribly burdensome. There's a good chance your existing graphics card already meets the requirement — GPU models dating back several years include the support, such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450, which is available on the used market for around $20.