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Valheim PC System Requirements — Can Your Machine Run 1.0?

The minimum and recommended specs for Valheim 1.0 on Windows, macOS and Linux as listed on the Steam store page, plus what hardware upgrades make the biggest difference.

Verified Valheim 1.0

By Valheim Field Guide Editorial Team

Requirements as listed on the Steam store page

Iron Gate lists system requirements per platform on the Valheim Steam store page. The figures below match the current store page, per platform.

Windows

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 10 or later (64-bit only)
  • Processor: 2.6 GHz Quad Core or similar
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7970
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 1 GB available space

Recommended:

  • OS: Windows 10 or later (64-bit only)
  • Processor: i5 3GHz or Ryzen 5 3GHz
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 1 GB available space

macOS

Minimum:

  • OS: MacOS 11 or later
  • Processor: 2.6 GHz Quad Core or similar
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Radeon Pro 450 or R9 M290X
  • Storage: 3 GB available space

Recommended:

  • OS: MacOS 14 or later
  • Processor: Apple M1
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: M1 Integrated GPU or Radeon Pro 570X
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 3 GB available space

Linux / SteamOS

Minimum:

  • OS: Any up-to-date version
  • Processor: 2.6 GHz Dual Core or similar
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7970
  • Storage: 2 GB available space

Recommended:

  • OS: Any up-to-date version
  • Processor: i5 3GHz or Ryzen 5 3GHz
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 2 GB available space

What actually matters — the real bottlenecks

The Steam numbers give you a pass/fail for “can I run it?” but they do not tell you what will struggle. In practice, Valheim 1.0 stresses three components more than the official page suggests:

1. RAM is the biggest upgrade for most players

The Deep North added more biomes, more world data, and the Unity upgrade loads more terrain into memory. If you have exactly the 8 GB minimum:

  • You will hit swap/pagefile regularly when entering new biomes
  • World loading times are noticeably slower
  • You will see texture pop-in more frequently

Upgrade from 8 → 16 GB is the single most noticeable improvement for 1.0, especially if you have mods installed or run other programs in the background. Above 16 GB the gains tend to taper off for most setups, though heavy 10-player worlds and modded sessions can push further.

2. GPU matters most in the Deep North

The snow terrain, frozen water, and new cloth physics (Magica system) added in 1.0 all hit the GPU. Minimum-spec GPUs (GTX 950 / HD 7970) can struggle the first time you step into heavy snow terrain.

If your GPU is below a GTX 1060 level, expect to lower settings in the Deep North. Reduce draw distance first (a new 1.0 graphics setting), then lower shadow quality.

We are not publishing per-GPU framerate numbers here — results vary dramatically with in-game settings and world size, so any single figure would be misleading.

3. Storage is cheap but important

It is worth keeping two different figures separate. The “available space” figures above — 1 GB on Windows, 3 GB on macOS, 2 GB on Linux — are the install capacity Iron Gate lists on the Steam store page. The 1.0 download size is a separate number: around 4.3 GiB on most platforms, but it varies by store — roughly 3.0 GiB on Xbox One and about 6.5 GiB on the Mac App Store and the Microsoft Store. The download size is not the “storage space required” figure, so do not treat the 4.3 GiB as the amount of free space you must clear. World save files grow on top of the install footprint as you explore. SSDs noticeably reduce world loading and the initial terrain-generation delay; this is not a hard requirement — HDDs work — but it is the cheapest quality-of-life upgrade if you have a spare slot.

Can your PC run it? Quick self-test

  1. Check Windows → Settings → System → About for your CPU and RAM.
  2. Open Task Manager → Performance → GPU to see your graphics card name.
  3. Compare against the official table above.

If you are between minimum and recommended — for example, you have an 8 GB laptop with a GTX 1050 Ti — Valheim will run, but you should expect to turn down graphics settings after the first biome. The Deep North is the stretch goal for your hardware.

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