With so many highly anticipated holiday 2022 games delayed until next year, there are really only a handful of big releases this season. That short list includes God of War: Ragnarok, Gotham Knights and the latest installment in one of gaming’s longest-running franchises, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Of these, Modern Warfare 2 is the most likely to wow graphics fans, especially running on a high-powered gaming PC. If you’ve got a budget gaming laptop, you should still be able to run the game, but it won’t look nearly as nice. If you have a laptop or desktop without a discrete graphics card from Nvidia or AMD, there’s no chance. You should stick to the console version, as the game is also available on the PlayStation and Xbox platforms.
Activision actually lists four different sets of specs to consider for PC players. They include the usual minimum and recommended specs, but also a separate set for competitive gamers (online multiplayer) and another set specifically for 4K gaming.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 specs
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
Competitive |
Ultra 4K |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating system |
Windows 10 64-bit |
Windows 10 64-bit/Windows 11 64-bit |
Windows 10 64-bit/Windows 11 64-bit |
Windows 10 64-bit/Windows 11 64-bit |
| CPU |
Intel Core i3-6100/i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 |
Intel Core i5-6600K/Core i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 |
Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X |
Intel Core i9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 9 3900X |
| RAM |
8GB |
12GB |
16GB |
16GB |
| Storage space |
72GB at launch |
72GB at launch |
72GB at launch |
72GB at launch |
| Hi-Res assets cache |
Up to 32GB |
Up to 32GB |
Up to 32GB |
Up to 64GB |
| video cards |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon RX 470 |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580 |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT |
| Video memory |
2GB |
4GB |
8GB |
10GB |
| Recommended GPU driver version |
Nvidia: 516.59; AMD: 22.9.1 |
Nvidia: 516.59; AMD: 22.9.1 |
Nvidia: 516.59; AMD: 22.9.1 |
Nvidia: 516.59; AMD: 22.9.1 |
There’s a handy benchmark app built into the PC version of the game, so you can try different combinations of graphics settings and see how they affect performance. You can find the app under Multiplayer in the game’s main menu. Below are the results from running the game at the Ultra settings preset on the Alienware x15 R2 gaming laptops.
This Alienware system has an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU and Nvidia RTX 3070Ti GPU. The game ran great, no complaints, with an average frame rate of 82fps. I’ll follow up when I have a chance to download the game on other gaming laptops.
Screenshots by Dan Ackerman/CNET