GTA V for PC will get ray tracing and more with big visual update in March

It’s been 12 years since Grand Theft Auto V was originally released on consoles, and though it was late coming to the PC (as are all Rockstar games), it’s still one of the most played titles over a decade later. Following in the footsteps of the game itself, GTA V and GTA Online will both get some new visual options in a huge update on March 4th, including much-anticipated ray tracing visuals.

As Tom’s Hardware notes, the extra visual flair was already available for the special edition of the game re-released on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. But PC players do get some exclusive options, which include “ray tracing features only available on PC,” ambient occlusion, and global illumination. If your graphics card is sweating just by rendering that text, don’t worry, the game update will also add support for upscaling via Nvidia DLSS 2 and AMD FSR1/FSR3. New higher-res and aspect ratio options should mean the game looks great on the latest monitors, too.

The new goodies will require a bit more hardware power, though. Rockstar now recommends at least an Intel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, Nvidia RTX 3060 or AMD RX 6600XT graphics card, and at least 16GB of RAM. Naturally, if you want the highest frame rates and resolutions, you’re going to need even more than that.

It’s not just the visuals getting an upgrade. The game is getting a grab bag of brand-new vehicles and tuning options, ambient animals in the wild, a new photography challenge, and career progress in GTA Online.

Grand Theft Auto VI was announced in 2022 and is currently scheduled for a late 2025 release on consoles. There’s no PC version confirmed at the moment, as is Rockstar tradition.