It's a 10 year old game built on like a 15-20 year old engine, you might be fine w your old PC, what are the specs on the PC?

My advice - start playing ASAP, it’s the best game out there by far

If you're not gonna build your own then just Google pre built pc's and choose one.

Depends on how good you want the game to look. It’s been updated a lot over the years to where high/extreme settings look like an entirely new game compared to 7-8 years ago.

Medium settings you could probably get away with any entry level setup but you’ll be missing out on the realism that this game can truly deliver when maxed out. Also, other players with better setups will have their view distance maxed out and will see you from literally miles away, while they will still be invisible to you from much closer distances.

I have a decent system with 4070, 12700k and it still drops below 60 frames at times when maxed on extreme settings. But damn does the game look good. They polished a turd so well it actually became gold.

Dayz isnt that demanding, until last year I would play it on high specs with a computer that was approaching 10 years old although admittingly it was quite specced out for its time. Post your specs

And in terms of playing, just youtube search getting started in it and look for those "101 things you didn't know bout Dayz", diving head first, struggling for several hours before getting better and better

The game is twelve years old. Give it a try with your current setup first. The graphics look okay at min settings. DayZ is one of those games where you randomly change one setting and see no difference, except that your FPS drops by, like, 30%.

OP, if you're willing to try building your own PC, you can go pretty cheap buying used parts on eBay. Not to shit on consoles (it's a valid option) but it's a very different game on PC - there's a huge modding community and lots of variance in play. If you're building you can get a very performant PC at the same cost of a recent console. Plus, you have the option to upgrade your hardware whenever.

The minimum I'd recommend is

• Nvidia GTX 1060 or higher. Any RTX 30 series or more recent will get you peak visuals. Make sure it has at least 6 GB VRAM.

• Intel i7-6700 or more recent. Make sure it's an i7; i9 is overkill and meant for workstations, i5 won't be performant enough except on 11th gen or later. The naming scheme for Intel is ix-yz00, where ix denotes the number of logical cores, y denotes the generation (most recent is 14), and z denotes the performance tier (700 being the typical gaming go-to).

• 8 GB RAM minimum. More is better - I'd go 32 GB if budget allows, but RAM is expensive rn and it wouldn't be a huge step up from 16GB.

Something along those lines will run you about $600 with used or refurbished parts, including case and power supply (go for 700 watt minimum). I do recommend buying a new power supply rather than a refurbished one - your whole build depends on its stability. Best brands are Seasonic, be quiet!, and Corsair.

If you're not willing to try building (it's easier than it looks and there are great YouTube guides), look for a pre-built gaming PC (desktop) in the 800-1200 dollar range.

I have a 3060ti and 5800x and the game run fines. About a 5 year old system. My friend had a 2060 and also ran the game fine.

plenty of good advice, but you haven't said the specs of your current PC. DayZ specs are 10yo and it doesn't take much to meet min.

Do yourself a favor and buy the game and jump in. Chances are your PC will do fine. If you really enjoy it then consider upgrading. Don't get discouraged about dying. Every life is a new opportunity for interactions and adventure. Make a small goal and achieve make another goal and so forth. Happy surviving

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