Capcom confirmed last March that Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake and Resident Evil 7 will receive a “next gen” patch that will introduce significant technical improvements. We do not yet have a complete list with all the changes at the graphic level, but we know that one of the most important will be the introduction of ray tracing.
As many of our readers will know, ray tracing can be applied to shadows and ambient occlusion, reflections, refractions and caustics, as well as global illumination. With this in mind, it’s clear that Capcom has a lot to choose from, although I personally believe that the ideal will be to integrate such technology into shadows, reflections and lighting. If it was only possible to choose one per performance theme, lighting would be my choice without a doubt.
At the moment we can only wait for Capcom to decide to release the patch and to publish the complete list of graphic improvements included, although we can already tell you that the new generation patch will have important consequences on the minimum requirements. According to the Japanese company, after the application of the new generation patch, the requirements of Resident Evil 2 Remake will be higher, and the jump is so remarkable that it can end up having a considerable impact on many users.
Minimum requirements of Resident Evil 2 Remake
- Windows 7 as operating system or higher.
- GeForce GTX 760 or Radeon R7 260x graphics card.
- DirectX 11.
Minimum requirements for Resident Evil 2 Remake after the “next gen” patch
- Windows 10 as operating system or higher.
- GeForce GTX 960 or Radeon RX 460 graphics card.
- DirectX 12.
As we can see, there are three important changes that affect the operating system, the graphics card and the version of DirectX. We will need to have Windows 10, and also a more powerful graphics card. This last change is easy to understand, since NVIDIA’s GTX 700 series doesn’t play well with DirectX 12 (it only supports this API at level 11_0, while the GTX 960 offers 12_1 support). And in the case of AMD, I imagine that requiring a Radeon RX 460 is due more to a question of power than anything else, since it supports DirextX 12_0, just like the Radeon R7 260x.
Capcom has been very clear, you will not be able to play Resident Evil 2 Remake with the current minimum requirements, so if you want to continue using it you will have to upgrade your PC. It would be nice if Capcom gave the option not to install the patch new generation for those who will not be able to meet the minimum requirements.
On the other hand, I remember very well that Resident Evil 2 Remake offers better performance under DirectX 11, so I hope that Capcom has taken this into account in the face of the integration of the “next gen” patch and the increase in requirements, and that they have accompanied it with the corresponding optimizations. We do not have an exact release date, but I hope to share with you an article dedicated to assessing the improvements that the patch will introduce once it is available.
