GTA 5 PC to receive free upgrade with PS5 and Xbox Series S/X improvements

Rockstar Games officially announced a free upgrade for Grand Theft Auto 5 on PC next month, which will bring a host of technical advancements and GTA Online features previously only available on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X versions of the game.

Moreover, to improve graphical quality and online-specific content, the upgrade will bring access to GTA+ membership for PC players. The free upgrade is set to be rolled out on March 4 for all players who own GTA 5 on PC.

Rockstar Games free upgrade for GTA 5 on PC

In a blog post, Developer Rockstar Games detailed the contents of the PC upgrade on Thursday. With the upgrade, GTA 5 on PC will get PC-specific ray tracing features like ambient occlusion and global illumination.

In addition, the upgrade will include support for ray-traced shadows and reflections, which first arrived on current-generation consoles. Players who upgrade to the new version will also be able to migrate their Story Mode and Online progress from the previous version.

GTA 5 on PC will also receive support for artificial intelligence (AI) upscaling techniques, such as AMD FSR1 and FSR3, and NVIDIA DLSS 3.

Other technical advancements coming to the game include faster load times on SSD and DirectStorage; improved support for higher resolutions, aspect ratios, and framerates; DualSense controller support with adaptive triggers; and enhanced audio with support for Dolby Atmos and improved fidelity of speech, cinematics, and music.

Rockstar urged a minimum of 8GB of RAM, Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-9590 processor, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 or AMD Radeon RX 6400 GPU with 4GB VRAM for the upgraded version of the game on PC.

Other upgrade details of GTA 5 on PC

Additionally, the free upgrade will integrate GTA Online features, currently only available on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. These include new vehicles and vehicle upgrades at Hao's Special Works, Ambient Animal encounters across Southern San Andreas, GTA Online's Career Progress feature, a refreshed landing page, and an improved introductory cash reward of GTA$ 4,000,000 for newer players.

GTA Online player experience enhancements, such as kernel-based anti-cheat protections and proactive voice chat moderation also arrive as part of the upgrade.