Assassin's Creed PC specs released

Assassin's Creed was, at first glance, a love it or hate it kind of game. People were quickly divided into one of the two groups. There were those who loved the free-roaming, free-running and free-spirited approach of the game, and there were those who just wanted to be stick-in-the-muds. Either way, the one thing that everybody agreed on was the visual - the game had a visual flair that is pretty much unmatched.

Unfortunately, graphics that good come at a price and, although the console variants seem to have managed OK, the PC version has some rather steep system requirements. Check them out below...

Minimum Requirements
Processor: Dual core processor 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
RAM: 2GB
Video Card: 256MB DirectX 10.0-compliant video card or DirectX 9.0-compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 compliant sound card
HDD Space: 12GB
OS: Windows XP or Vista
DirectX Version: DirectX 10.0 libraries (included on disc)

Recommended Requirements
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better
RAM: 3GB
Video Card: 512MB DX10/DX9.0c (SM3.0 or higher) video card
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 compliant sound card with 5.1 surround
HDD Space: 12GB
OS: Windows XP or Vista
DirectX Version: DirectX 10.0 libraries (included on disc)

Yowzer, eh? The PC version of Assassin's Creed has minimum requirements which are in some cases higher than the recommended specs for Crysis! It all sounds a bit fishy to us and the general consensus seems to be that the PC version may be just a little bit unoptimised.

The supported list of graphics cards includes anything from the Radeon X1300 / GeForce 6600, right up to the latest and greatest cards from both ATI and Nvidia.

Are the high hardware requirements driving you away from PC gaming and towards consoles? Will you be able to play the PC version of Assassin's Creed? Let us know in the forums.