New to VR Gaming Got a new computer what should I do?

[drbrock]

Moral of the story, I got a new PC for work that has an i5 skylake processor.

I am currently a Xbox One gamer with moderately PC Gaming experience. I generally like single player campaigns and am not a huge multiplayer guy anymore.

VR interests me and I am not going to buy PS4.5 or Xbox Scorpio. I have a 4k Tv but not 4k Monitors.

I heard the new 1070 is coming out and thinking about getting it for my birthday. I can also write it off as a business expense. (can't afford the 1080)

Are the cards going to be VR ready and fairly powerful? Or will it be barely able to run it? Should I wait for the AMD competitor? I have a 7850 in my other PC and it is showing its age big time. It was basically not able to run ultra games within a few months of me buying it.


This question might be for Video card section but I really want it for PC gaming perspective.

 

[Kaido]

For desktop VR, you can either get an Oculus or Vive. Oculus comes with an Xbox controller, Vive comes with VR remotes. Vive also has lighthouse pods so you can walk around your room for games.

Oculus recommended PC specs:

Video Card NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
Memory 8GB+ RAM
Video Output Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
OS Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer

Vive recommended PC specs:

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970 / AMD Radeon™ R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU: Intel i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
RAM: 4GB+
Video Output: HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2 or newer
USB Port: 1x USB 2.0 or greater port
Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 or newer

A 1070 GPU would do great in a VR setup.

 

[Aikouka]

The 1070 should be a fine card for VR since it's about equivalent to a GTX 980 Ti. As for AMD, I'm not 100% sold on the 480 for all VR experiences. My problem is that while both cards will absolutely crush some of the simpler titles, I do wonder how the 480 will handle any fancier titles. If I remember correctly, it's positioned somewhere around the 980, which isn't bad, but I'd be tempted to see what framerates it gets in some of the more visual experiences like that weird alchemist thing in The Lab.

 

[gorobei]

unless you absolutely need to play now, you are better off waiting 3-4 months to see amd/nv full card lineups and actual vr benchmarks.

both amd's liquidvr and nvidia's latest vr support havent really been fully exploited by any game dev so we wont know what real performance will like until benchmarks come out. if you cant afford 1080 then you may want to see what vega is priced at given the polaris discounted pricing. also there is no testing out yet that indicates nv has fully fixed its pre-emption problems, which is absolutely critical for higher resolutions and faster frametimes.

 

[Elixer]

unless you absolutely need to play now, you are better off waiting 3-4 months to see amd/nv full card lineups and actual vr benchmarks.

Yeah, way too soon to tell anything about VR, and, going by the mid-range system you have, I wouldn't expect that much from VR anyway.
You need lots of CPU cores & threading to take full advantage of VR gear, and I wouldn't go by what they list either, they usually low-ball it.

$700 or so for VR gear can be better spent on other things, after all, I consider these first gen VR gear. They will have better & faster later on.

 

[xantub]

- On the headset, if you have space in your house and either a very tolerant SO or no SO, the Vive provides full room experience but costs $800. The Rift is economically a better alternative if you don't care for full room experience, at $600.
- If you can wait for VR, you could wait for alternatives. Razor just announced they're making a device equivalent to the Rift (without the Xbox controller) for $400.
- On the video card, the GTX 970 is the 'minimum recommended' card for the Rift, which means all games and software so far will work fine with it or anything above it (GTX 980, GTX 1070 or GTX 1080).
- If you buy a GTX1070 right now you'll probably buy the 'founders edition', which is like $100 more expensive than the custom cards that should pop up within a month or two.

 

[Stuka87]

What are your computer specs now? Can it even handle a 1070? Is this some pre-built system, or a custom built rig?

 

[Mutilator]

FWIW the Vive is the better system atm... and Oculus/Facebook seem to continue to shoot themselves in the foot as they walk down the path of overtaking EA as the most hated company in the industry.

As far as video cards go my GTX 970 has run every VR title I've played flawlessly. Keep in mind it is the recommended card, not the required card so anything above it is obviously going to be even better. No doubt over the course of the next year as VR matures more and more GPU intensive titles are going to come out. But like others have said wait a couple weeks and get the non-founders edition and save yourself some money.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Be prepared to spend a lot of money.

 

[Kaido]

The 1070 should be a fine card for VR since it's about equivalent to a GTX 980 Ti. As for AMD, I'm not 100% sold on the 480 for all VR experiences. My problem is that while both cards will absolutely crush some of the simpler titles, I do wonder how the 480 will handle any fancier titles. If I remember correctly, it's positioned somewhere around the 980, which isn't bad, but I'd be tempted to see what framerates it gets in some of the more visual experiences like that weird alchemist thing in The Lab.

FWIW, the GTX 1070 is actually faster than a Titan:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/nvidia-gtx-1070-review/

As Nvidia promised, the GTX 1070 is indeed faster than both the GTX 980 Ti and the Titan X, and by some margin: as much as 12 percent in some tests. Just a couple of months ago GTX 980ti cards cost upwards of £500/$650, but the GTX 1070 costs just £399/$449 at the high end.

In its Founders Edition form (Nvidia's new nomenclature for reference cards), the GTX 1070 is cool and quiet, too. The smaller, more efficient TSMC 16nm FinFET manufacturing process lets Nvidia ramp up performance to Titan-beating levels, while keeping the TDP down to a reasonable 150W.

So:

1. Faster than both the GTX980 Ti & Titan
2. Up to $200 less than a 980Ti
3. 150w TDP = runs cool & quiet

Very compelling GPU! Although that just makes me want a 1080 that much more

 

[Stuka87]

FWIW, the GTX 1070 is actually faster than a Titan:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/nvidia-gtx-1070-review/



So:

1. Faster than both the GTX980 Ti & Titan
2. Up to $200 less than a 980Ti
3. 150w TDP = runs cool & quiet

Very compelling GPU! Although that just makes me want a 1080 that much more

You can get 980Ti's for just over $400 right now. And an OC'ed 980Ti is a superior card to a 1070.

 

[Midwayman]

I don't know why you would buy a GPU right now without at least waiting to see the final benches of the RX480 at the end of the month. It'll be VR ready if that's your primary concern.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't know why you would buy a GPU right now without at least waiting to see the final benches of the RX480 at the end of the month. It'll be VR ready if that's your primary concern.

Labeling it VR ready is really just marketing until there are some reviews and numbers out there for us to see. It could be about as good as the first gen DX12 products being labeled "DirectX 12 compatible" but running kind of slow in the first few titles with DX12 support in them or it could actually be able to provide the necessary framerate without sacrificing visuals.