Borderlands 2: PC requirements and the PC you need

About Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 is a first-person shooter with role-playing elements from Gearbox Software, set on the wild, lawless planet of Pandora. You play one of several Vault Hunters, taking on missions, levelling up your skills and collecting an enormous variety of randomly generated guns as you battle the villain Handsome Jack. It can be played alone or in co-op with up to four players, and is known for its comic-book art style and humour. It is rated PEGI 18. The makers recommend a GTX 560 or HD 5850 and 2 GB of memory, so any of our gaming PCs plays it easily.

What Borderlands 2 needs

In plain words: to play at all it needs almost any graphics, even the graphics built into the processor, and to play it well the makers suggest basic graphics: built-in graphics on a modern processor, or an old entry-level card, with 2GB of memory.

A low-spec PC or a high-spec PC?

This is a light game: almost any of our gaming PCs will run it comfortably at high settings.

On a PC that only just meets the minimum, the game will start and play, but on low settings: simpler shadows and textures, shorter view distances and fewer frames each second, so fast moments can feel less smooth. A 1080p screen is the sensible match.

On a PC that meets or beats the recommended spec, you can turn the settings up: sharper textures, proper shadows and lighting, more detail in the distance, and a smoother picture. A stronger PC also lets you use a sharper 1440p or high-refresh screen.

Questions about Borderlands 2 on PC

How we match: we compare the graphics card and the memory in each PC with the makers' spec, because those decide most of how a game runs. For very new or demanding games, ask us and we will check the processor too. More help: graphics cards explained, how much RAM, which screen.