Without Hardware Revolution, PC VR Is Dead In Water

PC VR games are set to be the biggest development of 2016. But unless we witness the biggest hardware revolution in over a decade, PC VR will be dead before it's even started.

[DarkOcelet]

If Nvidia Pascal and AMD Greenland comes in 2016 then we could see a major price drop in the old high end GPU like 970/980/R9 380 but who knows really.

[Peace_Love_and_FPS]

Very true, but even in this state it's done fairly well with being a niche market. Hoping that PSVR will push the VR market to mainstream (even if it's the only mass approved product), but I'm content with the content for now ;)

[Neonridr]

I have to figure that not ALL VR games are going to require a brand spanking new i5 or i7, a 4GB+ video card and 8+ GB of RAM. Sure games like EVE Valkerie might, but I have seen countless games that have popped up on those VR sites that are crude and simplistic in nature.

I am guessing these specs listed by Oculus are so you can play all the current gen demanding games in VR while still maintaining a respectable frame rate.

[Eonjay]

I think you are on to something with what Oculus is doing. One of the biggest challenges for PC game development are the million of component combinations and scaling from weak to strong hardware. Therefore, if they have a performance floor in place, it makes developers jobs a little easier.
But getting everyone to upgrade to newer or stronger hardware is another challenge in itself.

[Eonjay]

There are a few ways to think about this. Looking at Steam, about 4% of PC gamers are using the GTX 970 which is min for VR on PC.
Myself, I am rocking the R9 280 which is one model to low and the FX-8320 CPU... which is also one model to low.

So, for me the minimal total cost of getting the rift is the cost of a r9 290 plus the cost of a FX-8350... and of course the rift.

So
$169 to upgrade CPU
$350 for GPU
$??? for Rift
-----------
$519 + cost of Rift. The only saving grace here is that I can sell my old parts.

[DarkOcelet]

If you are gonna upgrade your GPU, i recommend you wait for Pascal or Greenland.

I believe this year we will be finally able to play games like Wither 3 on Ultra 4k/60fps with Hairworks ON.

Hopefully the price is reasonable though. More than 750$ will be overkill for me.

I want a beastly GPU like 980ti but with the same price.

[Eonjay]

Yeah. I could never justify spending $700+ on a GPU which would in turn force me to upgrade my PSU (probably) amount other things. And as it relates to VR... I still have to do research on Pascal. Now may not be the time to upgrade as you said.

[sorane]

A 970 is not the min for VR. It's the min that Oculus wants for games on the Oculus store. Doom VR isn't just going to magically jump up to a 970 requirement once VR is officially released when it requires far lower now. Many many games don't require anything close to a 970 now for VR.

[morpha]

If you get a score over 9300 on 3D marks FireStrike test (which is included in the free demo) you will be able to run Oculus Rift stuff 'well enough'.

Obviously you need to be able to run games at ~1600*1200@ 90fps to meet the Oculus panels default resolution and refresh rate.

[Eonjay]

Thank you for this info. I will benchmark my system against this.

[uth11]

There's a faulty assumption in the article's thinking that this needs to be an initial success to be a success.

If you compare it to the current state of say the console market, that might be true. It's highly unlikely that the Wii U would suddenly become a sensation and the dominant platform after being on the market 3 years.

But VR is a new market, and those rules don't apply yet. Look at when Videogame consoles were new. The Atari 2600 was on the market for about 3 years before it took off and became really popular. I think VR will behave more like early video games and take time to find their audience.

[Eonjay]

"There's a faulty assumption in the article's thinking that this needs to be an initial success to be a success."

Which is a good point because how does someone actually determine if new tech is a success.

[jmac53]

It's a success if it sells. Eventually the barrier to entry will be lowered and the mainstream will be able to purchase VR. For the next couplease of years it's an expensive gaming hobby.

[sweendog]

Really good point and i never thought of it like that.

Some recent technologies have launched with ridiculous price points such as the first 4k tv I saw at £26000!
If the initial sales were to be taken into account I'm sure the 4k plug would have been pulled a long time ago.

I'm hoping the vr tech takes off as I have been lucky enough to have had a DK2 for a while now and I love it. Especially project cars with a wheel, its out of this world.

[DEEBO]

When my wife makes that RN $ then i will think about pc and vr but ps4 is going to have vr with half the cost of this and no upgrades needed.

Plug&play

[sweendog]

Ive got both Pc and ps4 and although PSVR looks like the better option, I cant see an option to plug vr porn into the PS4 via a hard drive to view on the PSVR.
If the PS4 was like my PS3 and had all the multimedia that had then yeah, I would be on board.

Don't judge me, this is the same reason VCR was victorious over Betamax

[s45gr32]

True but VR on PS4 will remain the same; however, on PC it will become better and more immersive than what PS4 can offer.

[2pacalypsenow]

It is if it requires a high end computer, also people give 3D tv's so much grief because of the glasses, why are people not complaining about the huge VR headset

[Peace_Love_and_FPS]

I can't believe I never thought of VR without a headset! That's brilliant! /S

[N4Geeing]

Don't need pc to make virtual reality, just make it exclusively for consoles.

[s45gr32]

Actually VR will only blossom and work best on a PC. That $400.00 console cannot run VR properly anyways. The PS VR requires the headset to have built in external cpu/gpu in order for it to work on the PS4. The vive/oculus rift no such requirement due to the hardware is already there. As the PC hardware improves VR will improve with it while the PS4 version of VR will remain the same.

[Dirkster_Dude]

I have seen this VR nonsense before. They have tried it off and on for the last 30 years and it has never worked out so I will not hold my breath. The coolest thing in VR that I ever experienced was at MIT - it was a full body DOOM 2 simulator. It was like a Star Trek holodeck. A couple of us on the tour got to try it out.

[dmeador]

There were a lot of things that were tried before the timing was right. Computer watches, touch screens, solar panels, etc. The argument that it didn't work very well in the past can be a moot point when dealing with technology

[WheatBread]

This article is stupid and the blogger is pissed because he has a poverty pc.

[Lennoxb63]

You have to make it more efficient first. Make it require a lot less power than it does now, then push the hardware.

[Kleptic]

its not that the headset 'requires' a lot of processing power...its the fundamental aspect of how close the screen(s) are to your eyes, and how latency ties in with motion sickness when using devices like this...

so, in order to develop similar looking modern games for a VR device of sorts...it takes a lot of hardware because high resolution and minimum of 60hz frame output is STILL not even close to a gaming standard...

when a modern console game says '60fps'...they still mean 60 max, average in the low 40's...dips to the 20's...these are, for the most part, accepted industry standards for a majority of game development...try that in VR, and i promise you'll get to repeat lunch.

just saying...its not like the headset needs to be more efficient or better optimized or something...and i get that consoles have nothing to do with PC VR specifically...but consoles still heavily dictate modern game developments hardware requirements, even on PC...a PC version of a game may slightly take advantage of very high end hardware...but its hardly a target during development...and with VR on PC, there is no way around it, they HAVE to take advantage of that stuff, as it won't work without it...

[s45gr32]

Basically you are saying a game developer can just port the game from console to PC when it comes to VR. Wish I agree, game developers need to finally take advantage of the PC hardware specially now that VR is about to launch

[Kleptic]

yeah, they can't just port the game from console/low end PC when it comes to VR...

[jairusmonillas]

This article is obviously paid by Nvidia.

[maybelovehate]

Just got a Titan X for Christmas. Hopefully it will do well, can't wait for Rift!

[ninjahunter]

Sounds about right considering that Oculus operates at more than twice the resolution of 1080p.

But what i want to know is how well it works at lower resolutions and lower frame rates. Like, what if you had it operate at the same resolution as the morpheus, and you shot for something like 45 fps instead of 90. Hypothetically it would only require a computer 1/4th if not less as powerful of what they are recommending.

[sweendog]

My DK2 runs at 75 fps minimum. If it dips it is a horrible experience, its like being drunk without your mates.
I start a game using my screen and faps and make sure it runs above 75fps at all times. then I play using the rift.
That might not sound good but you don't notice any graphical downgrades when you are actually inside the game.
For instance, playing project cars I turn crowds off, have grass detail to minimum and shadows on low to maintain FPS and its the best racing experience i have ever played.
Basically the old rule FPS before graphics still stands

[plmkoh]

I played a full body tracking zombie shooter with DK1, and even with the horrible resolution and lame graphics I didn't give two craps about the presentation. When you're in the game the experience already stands up.

[s45gr32]

Ha ha ha what a silly article Nvidia GTX 970 is not that expensive compared to the Nvidia Titan X. No a lot of pc gamers play on a desktop not a wimpy ass laptop. It seems the author plays on console as opposed to PC

[OoglyBoogly]

Don't forget that not all VR games are going to be visual treasures and that there are a ton of other uses for VR outside gaming like movies and TV shows, live events like concerts or sports games, 3D pictures, etc.