Batman: Arkham Knight system requirements updated just ahead of launch

A funny thing happened on the way to the release of Batman: Arkham Knight: The system requirements were changed. It's not a dramatic overhaul, but if you've got an AMD video card stuffed inside your rig, you'll probably want to give it a look.

More ominously, the update warns that "there are some known issues with the performance of Batman: Arkham Knight for PC owners using AMD graphics cards. We are working closely with AMD to rectify these issues as quickly as possible and will provide updates here as they become available. We thank you for your patience in this matter."

The response thread on Steam is currently 22 23 24 pages long, and while I haven't read all of it, there's a lot of unhappiness. Not just because of the change, which has left some lower-end AMD owners unexpectedly unable to play the game, but because of the timing: The updated specs were posted less than 12 hours before Batman: Arkham Knight goes live on Steam.

Update: AMD has released new Catalyst drivers optimized for Batman: Arkham Knight, which you can pick up here, or here for Radeon 300 series hardware. However, the download page notes that the game may crash during in-game benchmarking or when exiting, and that the screen may turn black or pink when changing the resolution to 1680x1050. Crossfire support for Arkham Knight also remains disabled, but will be re-enabled in a future update.

Nvidia has also put out a custom Game Ready driver for Batman: Arkham Knight, available here.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.