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Epic Games2017Unreal Engine 5Battle royaleShooter

Fortnite: GPU requirements and performance

Two very different games depending on the rendering mode. Performance mode runs on almost anything; the Unreal Engine 5 mode with Lumen and Nanite is a genuinely demanding modern workload that separates GPU tiers clearly.

What actually limits performance here

The part that generic system requirements never tell you.

  • Performance mode strips out the modern renderer entirely and is CPU-limited on most current graphics cards.
  • The DirectX 12 mode with Lumen global illumination and Nanite geometry is where the graphics card actually matters.
  • Hardware ray tracing is optional on top of Lumen and adds a further cost.
  • All three vendor upscalers are available, and frame generation is supported on hardware that offers it.

Published system requirements

The publisher's own figures. They describe a baseline, not the hardware needed for high settings at a high frame rate.

Publisher-stated system requirements for Fortnite
TierGraphics cardProcessorMemoryTarget
MinimumIntel HD 4000 / AMD Radeon Vega 8Core i3-3225 3.3 GHz8 GBPerformance mode
RecommendedNVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 / AMD Radeon R9 280 or equivalent DirectX 11 GPUCore i5-7300U 3.5 GHz8 GBNot stated

Technologies supported

Which vendor features this title implements, which decides how much your graphics card's feature set is worth here.

Ray tracing

Supported

CompareYourGPU classifies the ray tracing load as heavy.

DLSS

Supported

NVIDIA cards can render at a lower internal resolution and reconstruct the image.

FSR

Supported

AMD's upscaler is available, and works on other vendors' hardware in its earlier versions.

XeSS

Supported

Intel's upscaler is available, with dedicated hardware acceleration on Arc cards.

Frame generation

Supported

Available on hardware that supports it. It raises the displayed frame rate without improving responsiveness.

Reserved advertising space. No advertising network is connected yet, so nothing is served here.

Estimated

Which graphics card do you need for Fortnite?

The least expensive in-production cards whose estimated frame rate in this title is centred at or above 60 FPS, at High settings with no upscaling. The range shown for each card is the model's uncertainty band, so the lower bound can fall under 60.

CompareYourGPU estimate

Modelled from the estimated performance index and this title’s demand classification. Not a measured benchmark. How the model works.

1080p

Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling

  • Arc B570

    $219 MSRP · estimated 95-135 FPS

  • Arc B580

    $249 MSRP · estimated 110-160 FPS

  • RTX 5050

    $249 MSRP · estimated 95-140 FPS

1440p

Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling

  • Arc B570

    $219 MSRP · estimated 60-85 FPS

  • Arc B580

    $249 MSRP · estimated 75-105 FPS

  • RTX 5050

    $249 MSRP · estimated 60-85 FPS

4K

Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling

Measured

Verified benchmark data

Frame-rate figures transcribed from named third-party measurements.

No verified benchmark data for this game yet

CompareYourGPU only publishes frame-rate figures it can attribute to a named, linkable measurement. None have been transcribed for Fortnite yet, so nothing is shown here rather than numbers that would look authoritative without being verifiable.

Fortnite: common questions

What are the recommended system requirements for Fortnite?
Epic Games lists NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 / AMD Radeon R9 280 or equivalent DirectX 11 GPU, Core i5-7300U 3.5 GHz and 8 GB of RAM. Publisher requirements describe a baseline experience, not the hardware needed for high settings at high frame rates.
Does Fortnite support ray tracing?
Yes. CompareYourGPU classifies its ray tracing load as heavy relative to other titles here.
Does Fortnite support DLSS, FSR or XeSS?
It supports DLSS, FSR, XeSS. Frame generation is also available on hardware that supports it.
How demanding is Fortnite?
CompareYourGPU classifies it as moderate on rasterisation and heavy with ray tracing enabled. Performance mode strips out the modern renderer entirely and is CPU-limited on most current graphics cards.

Sources

  • Epic GamesPublisher-stated Fortnite system requirements

Last reviewed . Demand classifications are CompareYourGPU’s editorial judgement, not measurements.

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