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Can you run BioShock 2? PC requirements and settings

BioShock 2, by 2K Marin, 2K China, Digital Extremes, 2K Australia (Action), came out on Steam on February 9, 2010. Here are the official specs, and what they mean on the most common graphics cards.

Publisher's recommended cardNVIDIA 8800GT 512MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon HD4830 512MB graphics card or better
Minimum cardNVIDIA 7800GT 256MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon X1900 256MB graphics card or better
Recommended RAM3 GB

Estimate per graphics card

No frame-rate estimate for this game

The official page does not name a specific graphics card for both the minimum and the recommended specs. Rather than an invented number, we give none. ORION does the maths on your own PC, with your card, processor and screen, then measures the real frame rate while you play.

Official specs

Minimum and recommended requirements

Minimum

OS
Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
Processor
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 2.4Ghz or better, Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0Ghz Processor or better
Memory
2GB
Graphics
NVIDIA 7800GT 256MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon X1900 256MB graphics card or better
DirectX
DirectX 9.0c
Storage
11GB

Recommended

Processor
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core 2.60Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Dual Core 2.13Ghz
Memory
3GB
Graphics
NVIDIA 8800GT 512MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon HD4830 512MB graphics card or better

Source: the game's Steam page, read on October 7, 2026.

Where to buy

Buy BioShock 2

The official page first. In ORION, the Store tab compares prices across shops, with the official stores listed before key resellers.

On your PC

The same estimate with your own hardware, and the settings applied for you

ORION is a free game launcher for Windows. It reads your graphics card, processor and screen, estimates every game in your library, then measures the real frame rate while you play and sets the game up with its "Recommended" profile. No account, no ads.

Questions

BioShock 2 at a glance

Which graphics card do I need for BioShock 2 at 1080p?

The publisher recommends: NVIDIA 8800GT 512MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon HD4830 512MB graphics card or better. Minimum: NVIDIA 7800GT 256MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon X1900 256MB graphics card or better. The official page does not name a specific graphics card for both minimum and recommended specs, so we give no frame-rate estimate for this game. ORION does the maths on your own PC.

How much RAM does BioShock 2 need?

The publisher recommends 3 GB of RAM (minimum: 2 GB).

How much storage does BioShock 2 take?

The official page asks for 11GB of storage.

Other games

Check another game's requirements

By genre: Action games