PC Build for VR

mediaboy · 31 Jan 2016 at 13:33

Ok Ok i'm getting confused now.
Why would Oculus in their own specs say the 970 is fine?
And they are saying to developers they HAVE to meet those requirements for the 970?

I really can't consider a 980ti when i'm not going to be playing games for hours on end.
I'm a VERY casual gamer and will only be playing now and then and demoing to friends. It really will be mainly video.

IF, and it's a big if, should the 970 be inadequate, can i return it and upgrade to 980ti even after a some light use??

james.miller · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:16

970 is recommeded in order to have a decent base spec for developers as much as end users. Their blog post explains it better than i can https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/powering-the-rift/

On the raw rendering costs: a traditional 1080p game at 60Hz requires 124 million shaded pixels per second. In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift’s rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second. This means that by raw rendering costs alone, a VR game will require approximately 3x the GPU power of 1080p rendering.

970 is a 1080p card. full blown rift will destroy a 970 unless you want to be turning a lot of settings way down. which is fine but that's a lot of money to spend only to have to turn everything down to achieve the target frame rate.

mediaboy · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:23

I don't see how it will destroy it.

In their words:

Taking all of this into account, our recommended hardware specification is designed to help developers tackle these challenges and ship great content to all Rift users. This is the hardware that we recommend for the full Rift experience:

NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
8GB+ RAM

That's for the FULL Rift experience. So what am I missing?
Are you saying most developers will ignore the recommendations and need a better card?

mediaboy · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:44

Let's assume I do get a 980ti, will that mean more expensive motherboard and processor?
I don't want things getting silly price wise.

jbh110tdi · 31 Jan 2016 at 14:59

mediaboy said:
Let's assume I do get a 980ti, will that mean more expensive motherboard and processor?
I don't want things getting silly price wise.

you'll be able to use the same cpu and motherboard.

there are company's selling vr ready pc's that have the 970 in them..
surely there will be a bit of backlash if these machines don't run it smoothly..

mediaboy · 31 Jan 2016 at 15:08

Exactly what I'm thinking jbh.
These are not just any old companies jumping on the bandwagon. They're actually advertised as Oculus ready on the OR site itself.
While I don't want an off the shelf machine I can't see how they can advertise all this and then it not work as it should.

There would be massive repercussions if after laying out £525 for a Rift and then a PC around £1000 and it was full of judder.

Putting more RAM and improved CPU over these stock machines should be plenty in my opinion. But again, I'm a beginner in this area and want to get this right first time.

jbh110tdi · 31 Jan 2016 at 15:20

not going to put any competitor links up but heres the spec of there VR ready machine..

so put in a better cpu and double the ram and lets be honest.. its going to be a much better machine

james.miller · 31 Jan 2016 at 15:28

mediaboy said:
I don't see how it will destroy it.

In their words:

Taking all of this into account, our recommended hardware specification is designed to help developers tackle these challenges and ship great content to all Rift users. This is the hardware that we recommend for the full Rift experience:

NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
8GB+ RAM

That's for the FULL Rift experience. So what am I missing?
Are you saying most developers will ignore the recommendations and need a better card?

full rift experience means a solid 1200x1080x2 (2400x2160 in total) @90hz for the consumer kit. It does not mean games will run with all the setttings up high at these resolution with a 970. they categorically will not. its impossible, we are already hitting the limits of what the 970 can do at 1080p, let alone 3 times the pixel fill that the consumer rift will require. Put it this way, i cant achieve a solid 60fps in say, witcher 3, at 2560x1080 with everything up full with my i5 and 970. If i cant do that, i've got no hope whatsoever of doing it with a rift.

mediaboy said:
Exactly what I'm thinking jbh.
These are not just any old companies jumping on the bandwagon. They're actually advertised as Oculus ready on the OR site itself.
While I don't want an off the shelf machine I can't see how they can advertise all this and then it not work as it should.

There would be massive repercussions if after laying out £525 for a Rift and then a PC around £1000 and it was full of judder.

Putting more RAM and improved CPU over these stock machines should be plenty in my opinion. But again, I'm a beginner in this area and want to get this right first time.

Valve advertises steam machines with R9 370's in them. They also achieve 1080p @ 60fps...if you turn things down.

mediaboy · 31 Jan 2016 at 15:44

Well thanks, I'm back to square one

I suppose I have to bite the bullet and go for a 980ti.
I like having the best anyway so I maybe have to rethink my budget.

dsmudger · 1 Feb 2016 at 18:26

Nice thread! Here because I'm in a similar situation - Rift CV1 coming in March, been out of the PC game for a while, looking for a sweet-spot system for hopefully a little south of £1000.

Here's what I've come up with - maybe it'll help someone, and/or please flame away if I've gone wrong somewhere..

http://uk.************.com/user/dsmudger/saved/RpBkcf

You'll need to add a case (very much personal taste, and in my case fingers crossed I might be getting a hand-me-down from a colleague, hence not added here)

Also, yes, I'm vain like that, hence the colour-coordinated choices

(but happily they are still at or very close to cheapest in class while sticking to decent brands)

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £194.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX (MB-279-MS)= £89.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury White 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FWK2/16)= £74.99
1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (ZT-90101-10P)= £249.95
1 x Intel 750 Series 400GB PCIe 3.0 X4 HHHL Adaptor NVMe Solid State Drive (SSDPEDMW400G4X1)= £229.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)= £79.99

Total: £931.00
(includes shipping: £11.10)

mediaboy · 1 Feb 2016 at 19:12

Are you gonna be doing heavy gaming? According to some here that 970 won't cut it for a great experience.

dsmudger · 1 Feb 2016 at 19:34

Not too heavy, but in retrospect I may have gone a bit mad on the storage. Seeing if I can re-configure it with a regular SATA SSD and stretch to a GTX980..

mediaboy · 1 Feb 2016 at 19:38

I'm gonna get the 980ti. I'm not takin any chances with judder. I got a bit sick with the DK2.

If you're gonna lay out 900 you may as well go the whole way and spend 1200. That will probably be good enough for the CV2 in a couple of years.

dsmudger · 1 Feb 2016 at 20:57

You may have a point there - anyway here's where I got to - sacrificing some storage for a GTX980..

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £194.99
1 x **B Grade** MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX (MB-279-MS)= £89.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury White 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FWK2/16)= £74.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)= £79.99
1 x Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)= £65.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £399.95

Total: £917.00
(includes shipping: £11.10)

mediaboy · 1 Feb 2016 at 21:11

Like I said in the thread I'm pretty much a PC beginner but I've read the 980 isn't much of a leap from the 970. I'd spend that extra ton on a ti. I think you'll be glad you did in the long run.

It's out of my budget but I have to have the CV1 smooth or that's £525 wasted. Well worth it going the extra mile even if I have to save an extra month.

Lankoss · 2 Feb 2016 at 12:02

Going the 980ti route is a good shout in my opinion, the 970 will run the rift but it's minimum requirement really. Spending that extra bit of cash to not have to worry about turning down settings and ruining the experience is well worth it. When does your rift arrive out of curiosity? I would recommend holding off for as long as possible to 1.) Get some items when they come on offer which is common with PC parts and save money that way and 2.) Give yourself more time to set money aside so you can build a system as future proofed as possible as that will save you money in the long run and give you a better pc in the short term.

dsmudger · 2 Feb 2016 at 17:19

hm, really.. So the Rift's coming in March as far as I know. As you say I'll hold off 'til the last minute, but that probably won't make much difference.

It's fine, I'll spend what I need to really, just debating whether the result will be worth the big price difference. I mean the Oculus site seems quite adamant a 970 will be 'the full experience' - so was thinking get that to start, and SLI a second one (potentially later when the price comes down) if I feel like they weren't right about that..

But ok, I can be talked round, I'll start researching Ti's..

mediaboy · 2 Feb 2016 at 17:39

Mine arrives in May. Gives me time to save and also see some genuine reviews in case I want to cancel.
I think that the price they've had to sell the Rift at and the cost to people like me of buying a new system has had a big impact on how they market it.
Imagine having to lay out all that money and then tell people they need a ti.
Maybe the 970 isn't the best card to run it but they'd NEVER tell you that. I can see a backlash if it really hinders things. Their whole strategy will fail and the Vive will pick up the pieces.

dsmudger · 2 Feb 2016 at 19:44

hm, yeah, be interesting to see how it pans out for sure

this is very much early-adopter days though, so not sure if it's really a race to capture market share yet, still seems like gently feeling around to see what people like? maybe 2-3gens down the line price will start to come into it..

I like your theory though, about the 970 being the recommendation with a bit of arm-twisting involved..

If I already had a PC I wouldn't need much convincing at all, happy to spend £600 or whatever, it's getting off the ground with a (single-purpose!) system to put it in that makes the pain - been running my DK2 off a maxed-out Macbook Pro (GT750M), and that works fine, guess I figured since a GTX970 is so much better it'd be plenty

mediaboy · 2 Feb 2016 at 21:37

Exactly the same as me mate. Had my MBP playing the DK2. This is a different beast altogether though.
If they thought this would run on anything less than a 970 they'd shout it from the rooftops.

By stating the 970 is the least it will run in they have only made this available to hard core gamers. Most people who are into VR are not hard core gamers. This means a hell of a lot of people are having to buy new cards and probably CPUs.
If a lot of them shell out for 970s and the Rift is underpowered they will be furious as its Oculus telling them what to buy.
If it comes to that and you turn down all your settings you'll be left with a DK2 experience and people will be furious. It will be a PR disaster they may take years to recover from.

They will essentially be called liars.