Tomb Raider PC features, system requirements revealed

With Tomb Raider only weeks away, publisher Square Enix has detailed the bells and whistles added to the PC edition, including high-res textures and better shadows. It also confirmed the minimum and recommend system specs. The port is in good hands, made by Nixxes Software, the folks behind the respectable PC edition of Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Here are shinies Nixxes has crammed into the PC edition, not found on consoles:

• Very high resolution textures with up to 16x the amount of data

• Detail Tessellation to enhance the detail on many surfaces in the game

• Higher quality shadows

• High quality bokeh depth of field with near-blur

• Tessellation algorithms used to smooth out geometry

• Improved cloth, SSAO, quality wetness effects, and post-filter effects.

• LOD quality is adjustable for better quality on higher-end machines.

None too shabby! Tomb Raider's also a Steamworks game, with the usual support of Big Picture Mode, achievements, cloud saves, and whatnot. Square Enix revealed the minimum PC system requirements before, but here they are again if you've missed them (Windows XP support! Adorable):

• Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista,7,8 (32bit/64bit)

• DirectX 9 graphics card with 512Mb Video RAM:

  • AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT

  • nVidia 8600

• Dual core CPU:

  • AMD Athlon64 X2 2.1 Ghz (4050+)

  • Intel Core2 Duo 1.86 Ghz (E6300)

• 1GB Memory (2GB on Vista)

If you want to turn on some of those fancy PC features, though, you'll probably want something more like this recommended spec, or probably a fair bit higher:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8

• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM:

  • AMD Radeon HD 4870

  • nVidia GTX 480

• Quad core CPU:

  • AMD Phenom II X2 565

  • Intel Core i5-750

• 4GB Memory

Tomb Raider comes to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on March 5.