Forum Discussion
System Requirements for Rift to run smoothly.
I would like to first introduce myself. I am currently a mathematics graduate student that has worked as a programmer in the video game industry in the past. Now days game design and programming are h...
I could certainly try and test one on some really ancient hardware (some 2001 era PC's XD) - when I actually get one that is.
But the basic requirement for a decent experience would seem to be running at 60 fps.
I assume however that you'd have to target that as a minimum framerate, because I've come across games that, while averaging 60fps can in some cases drop to 20 or less, which seems like it wouldn't be particularly pleasant.
I mean, even without VR I find wildly fluctuating framerates more irritating than stable ones. (To me, a stable 20 fps is more pleasant than something which swings from 5 to 40, even if the average is higher. But that could just be me.)
I've got several computers to work with though, so I don't know what the reality will be.
Out of habit I'll probably begin coding on my 6 year old laptop, which has a core 2 duo combined with an Ati X1400 gpu.
I can't say I'm overly familiar with the performance of the intel HD 4000, but I'd be surprised if it's worse than this 6 year old low-end part. (even if it did outperform intel gpu's from that era by a significant margin)
Now, to be fair, I recall getting 240 fps in Quake 3 on that thing, so if you're willing to go design graphics to those kind of standards I doubt you'd have huge performance problems.
But of course, that's pretty ancient nowadays, and I can't really begin to guess how far you can push things before graphics complexity starts to become a problem.
It's also worth remembering that on my desktop system (AMD HD5770 - about 20 times faster than the laptop, by benchmark standards, anyway), I've noted that forcing 3d on at the driver level can cost 10-15 fps on a game running at about 50 fps otherwise.
Perhaps this can be reduced if it's integrated directly into the game engine, but I certainly wouldn't underestimate the cost of 3d or even the warping required for the rift. (granted, the low overall resolution might help, but again at this point it's all mostly guesswork.)
In any event, I intend on designing things that'll run on my laptop if at all possible, just to get a sense of what kind of limits hardware that weak imposes if you're designing for a VR system and want to avoid making people feel really ill.
Nothing like a bit of experimentation.
But the basic requirement for a decent experience would seem to be running at 60 fps.
I assume however that you'd have to target that as a minimum framerate, because I've come across games that, while averaging 60fps can in some cases drop to 20 or less, which seems like it wouldn't be particularly pleasant.
I mean, even without VR I find wildly fluctuating framerates more irritating than stable ones. (To me, a stable 20 fps is more pleasant than something which swings from 5 to 40, even if the average is higher. But that could just be me.)
I've got several computers to work with though, so I don't know what the reality will be.
Out of habit I'll probably begin coding on my 6 year old laptop, which has a core 2 duo combined with an Ati X1400 gpu.
I can't say I'm overly familiar with the performance of the intel HD 4000, but I'd be surprised if it's worse than this 6 year old low-end part. (even if it did outperform intel gpu's from that era by a significant margin)
Now, to be fair, I recall getting 240 fps in Quake 3 on that thing, so if you're willing to go design graphics to those kind of standards I doubt you'd have huge performance problems.
But of course, that's pretty ancient nowadays, and I can't really begin to guess how far you can push things before graphics complexity starts to become a problem.
It's also worth remembering that on my desktop system (AMD HD5770 - about 20 times faster than the laptop, by benchmark standards, anyway), I've noted that forcing 3d on at the driver level can cost 10-15 fps on a game running at about 50 fps otherwise.
Perhaps this can be reduced if it's integrated directly into the game engine, but I certainly wouldn't underestimate the cost of 3d or even the warping required for the rift. (granted, the low overall resolution might help, but again at this point it's all mostly guesswork.)
In any event, I intend on designing things that'll run on my laptop if at all possible, just to get a sense of what kind of limits hardware that weak imposes if you're designing for a VR system and want to avoid making people feel really ill.
Nothing like a bit of experimentation.