** GUIDE TO VR: WHAT SPECIFICATION OF PC/VGA DO I NEED? **

OcUK Staff
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Hi there


We are getting many enquiries about VR and what graphics cards and CPU's will actually power it. As such here is a short guide as to what Overclockers UK recommend for Virtual Reality when it comes to HTV Vive or Oculus Rift for example.

First of all, check the performance of your PC with the Steam VR benchmark tool that looks very like Half Life, could be a hint towards Half Life 3 but that is another story all together:
https://steamdb.info/app/323910/


If your system scores around 6-7 or higher you are good to go!


OcUK is recommending as follows:


Absolute minimum for VR experience: A NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD R9 390 or higher or in Steam VR Benchmark terms a score of 6-7.
Optimal VR experience: A NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 or AMD R9 390X/NANO/FURY with a Steam VR benchmark score of 8-9.
Best VR Experience: If you want to play a title such as Elite Dangerous with all visuals enabled and maximum quality you need a score of 10+ in the Steam VR Benchmark as such you will need a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ti or Titan X and from AMD were talking NANO/Fury Crossfire or an overclocked Fury X.

When it comes to Virtual Reality the graphics card is the single most important factor of your PC and Overclockers UK recommends a GeForce GTX 980Ti for the best VR experience.

Processor wise is not nearly as important, infact processors such as an Intel i3/i5 or AMD FX processor are more than adequate for Virtual Reality.

Memory wise again you should ideally have an absolute minimum of 8GB of DRAM and this is enough, of course with how cheap memory is these days it will do no harm to have 16GB or even 32GB but the benefits are more RAM are minimal.

Power supply, it just needs to be powerful enough with correct power connectors for your graphics card of choice.


Virtual Reality is indeed very exciting I myself have played several games and demo's using both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, my personal favourite is the HTC Vive as I felt the built quality was superior and the built in camera is very useful. Also nothing blew me away more than playing Elite Dangerous on a Titan X with the HTC Vive, it was truly sensation experience, a real game changer.

I really do hope Valve release Half Life 3 heavily optimised for VR in the near future because I feel it is the game we are all truly waiting for and could be a totally unreal experience playing it in VR.


For those wondering why VR is so demanding graphics card wise is simply because the combined resolution is 2160x1200 and you need ideally to be averaging 90fps at this resolution and in an ideal world you actually want your minimum FPS to be 90 and not lower. This requires a hugely powerful graphics cards which previous generations simply cannot muster or simply are not supported or optimised for VR.
 
I'm surprised you are recommending NANO/Fury Crossfire when it is widely known that SLI / Crossfire is not properly supported in VR at the moment (the bridge adds too much latency).
 
I'm surprised you are recommending NANO/Fury Crossfire when it is widely known that SLI / Crossfire is not properly supported in VR at the moment (the bridge adds too much latency).

A single card solution is always better, but AMD have had pretty good results especially with Nano CF for VR.

But I will always recommend a single card over two cards always for any application because of software title support and the fact SLI/CF can have software glitches.

Hence why 980Ti is highly recommended and if money is no object then Titan X.
 
Rift recommended specs are as follows: https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/t...pc-sdk-0-6-released-and-mobile-vr-jam-voting/

NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
8GB+ RAM
Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
2x USB 3.0 ports
Windows 7 SP1 or newer

Rift compatibility checker is here: https://shop.oculus.com/en-us/cart/

The don't recommend any AMD processors, all of them will fail their compatibility checker, as they don't have enough single threaded performance. Of course overclocks may change this situation and they won't stop you trying to run it on less.

It should be noted that the recommended spec is for games appearing in the Oculus storefront. For other games, as Gibbo has already pointed out, you may need more.
 
A single card solution is always better, but AMD have had pretty good results especially with Nano CF for VR.

But I will always recommend a single card over two cards always for any application because of software title support and the fact SLI/CF can have software glitches.

Hence why 980Ti is highly recommended and if money is no object then Titan X.


How about a LUBE & TISSUES bundle with those? ;)
 
Interesting, VR for me is all about the eye candy, Think it may be time to wait for the new architecture brings from both AMD & Nvidea so its paying a premium time again :( grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 
my 7950 will need scrapping before I'm ready, I ran the test in front of my missus and showed her the message "you should upgrade your graphics card" She's starting to get the message I want to spend copious amounts of money :D
 
I've been saying this all along. 970 is the absolute minimum and i honestly believe anybody putting a new pc together with a 970 for VR will be very disappointed.

I don't think so. Oculus have always said that a 970 is the minimum for a good experience. What they class as good is 90fps consistent to eliminate the nausea inducing frame drops and lag.
I think a 970 will be fine but obviously will need lower detail settings than a 980ti. I don't think people are going to have a bad experience with it.
Oculus are all about the experience being right. I'm sure they could say that a GTX660 would be the minimum because it can run the games but the experience will certainly be bad.

FYI, I was running a lot of the VR stuff on the DK2 with a GTX670. Yes, lower resolution than the CV and yes, lower frame rate (75 vs 90) but it was OK.
 
Hadn't seen this section until today. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the steamvr benchmark, I didn't realise that was a thing!

Cautiously ran it and am pleasantly surprised. Now just to wait and see which hardware to back.
 
ran the test on my 4,8ghz oc`d i7 and 295x2

and got a score of 11 :D

im supprised but both GPUS on my card when`t to 100% so the test was using crossfire for some reason.
though its weird cause the test was running in a window mode lol so not sure why crossfire was being tested... anyhoooo seems my system is VR ready with high fidelity according to the test.
 
Can I ask does the demo run in full screen or window? (for some reason it keeps running in window mode for me). I get a rating of 11 but wonder if this is due to the small screen.

Also could anyone explain to me what is required in terms of connections to the PC for the HTC vive exactly? (HDMI? USB etc etc?)

Many thanks folks.
 
Can I ask does the demo run in full screen or window? (for some reason it keeps running in window mode for me). I get a rating of 11 but wonder if this is due to the small screen.

Also could anyone explain to me what is required in terms of connections to the PC for the HTC vive exactly? (HDMI? USB etc etc?)

Many thanks folks.

All runs in window mode, but I believe it still renders at the screen resolution of the Vive screens, just shrinks the window down as it's possibly a higher resolution of most users displays, 2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye).

For connections, you require 1 x HDMI (cable provided) or 1 x Mini Display port (Cable not provided), 1 x USB2, and a power connector. This connects to a breakout box that sits on your desk, so you don't have to reach around the back of your system all the time to set it up, and then you have a long 1 piece cable containing USB/HDMI/Power that'll connect from the breakout box to your headset.
 
I see thanks. But wouldn't it need to be an active dp adsptor instead of just a standard cable ? Or it wouldn't matter?

Also if I already have a 3 monitor setup is this going to be not possible in the future if I have the vive?
 
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