Do I still need a decent graphics card for a VR if I am just using it to watch movies?

[pcslookout]

Can’t find anything

 

[Guru]

Yeah. If you want to play VR then you'll need a decent GPU to run it smoothly. Though something like RX 580 or GTX 1660 will do very well.

 

[darkswordsman17]

You'd have to lookup the specific use cases (as in, what format/service, what software, and what hardware as some might be able to use the video processing blocks). I'm not sure if the platforms themselves might offer more info or not. For instance there's a difference between just having the video mapped to the full display, versus how you actually watch Netflix through the Netflix VR app (which you're apparently in like a CGI cabin or something watching a CGI TV), and I think PSVR has a theater mode where it puts you in a CGI theater type setting for watching video (not sure if you have to do that mode, I think there is a generic "fill the screen" fall back, where it doesn't use any head tracking and just processes the image)

A lot of the 3rd party stuff is likely using the GPUs to interpolate images or doing the 3D stitching, and that will take GPU (not sure how much; I mean, you can peg high end GPUs with certain video processing so it really is dependent on the specifics of what the program is doing).

 

[pj-]

You'd be better off with an oculus go or similar if you're only going to use it for video watching.

The wire on any PC VR headset is going to make long, stationary use annoying

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Generally no, but it is application specific. If you wanted to just project the movie onto the screen more or less just a plane in front of you, then you don't need a very good GPU at all. If you want to use a game that renders you in 1st person inside a cinema room with a screen on the wall that will require a bit more power, maybe a mid range GPU but nothing excessive. Last time I used a cinema app way back on the DK2 which had a 3D rendered cinema complex it didn't need anything powerful because it was just a handful of meshes for the seats and other decals and that runs super fast.