EA have officially announced the minimum specs required to run Crysis 3. Crysis is famous among PC owner's for being the sole reason they've had to upgrade their PC, being one of the most graphically advanced PC games series ever.
The system requirements will be hard for some to swallow as Windows XP will not be supported, users must be running Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8. The reason for this is Windows XP cannot run DirectX 11 and users MUST have a DirectX 11 graphics card.


Minimum System Operating Requirements for PC:
Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
Dual core CPU
2GB Memory (3GB on Vista)
Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
Nvidia GTS 450
Intel Core2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600)
Example 2 (AMD):
AMD Radeon HD5770
AMD Athlon64 X2 2.7 Ghz (5200+)

Recommended System Operating Requirements for PC:
Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
Quad core GPU
4GB Memory
Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
Nvidia GTX 560
Intel Core i3-530
Example 2 (AMD):
AMD Radeon HD5870
AMD Phenom II X2 565

Hi-Performance PC Specifications:
Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
Latest DirectX 11 graphics card
Latest quad core CPU
8GB Memory
Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
NVidia GTX 680
Intel Core i7-2600k
Example 2 (AMD):
AMD Radeon HD7970
AMD Bulldozer FX4150

More impressive still is that Crytek have managed to get some of the advanced features that come from DirectX 11 to work on the current gen consoles.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Rasmus Højengaard, director of creative development at Crytek said:

“It is very, very difficult, but it is possible. It just requires a lot of effort. Some of the stuff these guys are making work on consoles now is absolutely amazing. It's render features that shouldn't theoretically work on consoles, but they've managed to construct code that can emulate a similar thing from a… hack and slash sounds wrong, but they don't have the same streamlined pipeline you would have with a DX11 structure, but they can get to a similar result just by experimenting and using tips and tricks."

Its very interesting to hear that someone is still pushing the limits of the current generation consoles, when it seems like other developers are giving up on them.