System requirements

Ancient is stricter about your machine than most of the catalogue. Read this before you buy, because none of it is something support can change for you.

Start with the baseline requirements that apply to everything we sell, then add what is on this page.

Hardware

Requirement	Detail
CPU	Intel or AMD, both supported
AES instruction set	Required, and enabled in BIOS. A CPU without it cannot run Ancient at all
Memory	16 GB RAM or more
OS	Windows 10 or 11, build 1909 to 25H2
Graphics	See Overlay setup. NVIDIA and AMD take different routes

Windows Insider builds, custom or "optimised" Windows images, and anything outside the 1909 to 25H2 range are not supported. A debloated image is the single most common cause of failures that look like a product fault.

BIOS

Setting	Required state
Virtualisation (VT-x, AMD-V, SVM)	Enabled
Secure Boot	Disabled
RAID and virtual disks	Off
Intel Rapid Storage Technology	Disabled
Storage controller	AHCI, not IDE or RAID
TPM	Disabled, but only if you use the built in spoofer

Windows

Virtualisation is enabled in BIOS and disabled in Windows. That is not a contradiction, it is two different things with confusingly similar names.

Your CPU's virtualisation extensions have to be on because Ancient uses them. Windows features that claim those extensions for themselves have to be off, because two things cannot hold them at once:

• Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Platform, under Turn Windows features on or off
• Core Isolation, also called Memory Integrity, under Windows Security, Device security
• Credential Guard and Device Guard

Turning the Windows features off is bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off followed by a restart, plus unticking both boxes under Turn Windows features on or off.

Per product differences

Most Ancient products want the same thing. Two rows genuinely differ, so check yours:

Product	Hyper-V	Firmware and disk
Rust, Fortnite, R6, Apex, ARC Raiders, DayZ	Must be disabled on AMD. Intel can leave it enabled	Intel needs UEFI mode and a GPT disk
EFT	Must be disabled on both Intel and AMD	UEFI or MBR both work

If you are on Intel with a Legacy BIOS install or an MBR disk, convert the disk with the built in mbr2gpt tool and switch the BIOS from Legacy to UEFI. Converting in the wrong order leaves an unbootable machine, so convert the disk first, then change the BIOS.

Software that has to go

• Riot Vanguard, FACEIT and ESEA. Uninstalled, not just closed. These load a kernel driver at boot and will block the loader.
• Other hypervisors. VMware, VirtualBox, Sandboxie, BlueStacks, WSL2 and Docker Desktop all install one.
• Other spoofers. Two spoofers running at once will fight, and Ancient's will fail.
• Antivirus. See below.

Antivirus

Our general antivirus advice is to add an exclusion rather than switch protection off, and that is still the right first move.

Ancient is the exception where an exclusion is often not enough. If the loader reports missing dependencies or closes instantly with exclusions already in place, real time protection itself has to be off while you use the product, and any third party antivirus has to be uninstalled rather than paused.

Checking what you are on

Press Win + R, type winver, press Enter for your Windows build.

For firmware mode and disk layout, press Win + R, type msinfo32, and check BIOS Mode (UEFI or Legacy) and, under Components, Storage, Disks, the partition style.