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 hobbies of mine. I've been excited for the development of the Oculus Rift, and all of the possibilities that go with it.
In my excitement of signing up for the Oculus SDK I may have made an oversight.
My laptop computer has the following
4 GB of RAM
Intel HD Graphics
Intel Core i3-370M Processor
Windows 7 Home Pro OS
It's capable of running Unity 4 at a decent framerate, but it tends to hiccup when there are too many objects to render.
I am thinking that I may need to get a more powerful computer if I don't want to get sick from latency problems.
I once was a participant several years ago as an undergraduate in a psychology/computer science experiment that used a VR headset. They were trying to determine why people had so much trouble with recognizing distances. A side effect of the experiment is that many people got nauseous after about 15 minutes or so. The hypothesis at the time was that the field of view was too small and that the latency was too high.
In my excitement of signing up for the Oculus SDK I may have made an oversight.
My laptop computer has the following
4 GB of RAM
Intel HD Graphics
Intel Core i3-370M Processor
Windows 7 Home Pro OS
It's capable of running Unity 4 at a decent framerate, but it tends to hiccup when there are too many objects to render.
I am thinking that I may need to get a more powerful computer if I don't want to get sick from latency problems.
I once was a participant several years ago as an undergraduate in a psychology/computer science experiment that used a VR headset. They were trying to determine why people had so much trouble with recognizing distances. A side effect of the experiment is that many people got nauseous after about 15 minutes or so. The hypothesis at the time was that the field of view was too small and that the latency was too high.
23 Replies
- FWIW, I have a laptop with Intel GMA, and it can run Quake 1/2/3 and Half-Life pretty fast.
theoretically, it should be possible to get something with "similar" graphical requirements (Quake 1/2 like) playable with the Rift on lower-end Intel hardware.
granted, this would probably mean without the distortion effect, as the laptop in question can't really handle shaders (shader effects result in a significant drop in framerate, so for sake of usable performance pretty much everything has to be fixed-function).
but, it should theoretically be doable...
wouldn't want to try anything Source-based with it though, as HL2 rarely breaks 12-15 fps before when tested...
another question would be how well it would work on a 10 year old laptop of mine (vs my 5 year old laptop), which ironically the older laptop still gets higher framerates in HL2 (and has a Mobile Radeon).
(yes, I was "impressed" with the power of Intel on this one...).
Intel HD is a bit better than Intel GMA, FWIW... - I am starting to get a little paranoid that my current setup won't be up to the task of letting me Rift (when it finally arrives)..
Any 'PC-Heads' reading, could you let me know if i'll be able to enjoy a smooth experience with this:
Intel Xeon CPU 5140 @ 2.33GHz
8 GB RAM
GeForce GT 520 w/ 1 GB Dedicated Video RAM
Windows 7 (64-bit)
I know that older stuff such as HL2 & TF2 run flawlessly, i can also run stuff like Crysis 2 & Dead Space 2 at the recommended level.
I've done some googling but not found anything that gives me a definite yes or no.
I'm too outdated for newer games such as BLOPS 2 but then again i'm not a PC gamer apart from the odd RTS here and there, hence why i don't regularly upgrade... but please tell me i'm more than ok for most stuff on the DK1...
:? :( :cry: I am starting to get a little paranoid that my current setup won't be up to the task of letting me Rift (when it finally arrives)..
just download some of the demos, most of them work without the rift. the rift is just the display all the hardwork is done by the software the game is made with and the graphics card. test at a 1280x800 resolution."genetransfer" wrote:
just download some of the demos, most of them work without the rift. the rift is just the display all the hardwork is done by the software the game is made with and the graphics card. test at a 1280x800 resolution.
Thanks for the reply dude, ok i just tried Titan's Of Space and a few different Coaster demo's.. all i get is a black screen, can hear sound/music though....- sounds strange, I haven't tried those demos yet though, only these ones https://share.oculus.com/
you may have to update directx runtimes (june 2010) if you haven't done that in a while or your graphics card drivers might need an update. have no idea though if you other games work ok. "genetransfer" wrote:
sounds strange, I haven't tried those demos yet though, only these ones https://share.oculus.com/
you may have to update directx runtimes (june 2010) if you haven't done that in a while or your graphics card drivers might need an update. have no idea though if you other games work ok.
Tried a whole bunch more demos, inc VR Cinema.
The best i can get is a blue screen instead of black, still can hear sound only.
All drivers up to date, i can play standard PC games and such no problems.
This is getting quite frustrating, can't find any info anywhere that helps, everyone seems to say it's a piece of cake to setup... typical that in my case it isn't.
Knew it was too good to be true... not sure whether to cancel my Rift order now...- if your drivers are upto date, I would suggest the directx runtimes (june 2010), win 7 doesn't come with them. it will show dx11 installed, but as you say if you have already previously installed them it's not relevant. blue screen is usually a dx/video card issue though.
- this might be helpful viewtopic.php?f=34&t=79&p=58268&hilit=demo+black+screen#p58268
"drash" wrote:
If you don't have the info handy, you can try running this utility called GPU-Z that will tell you a lot more stats about your graphics card: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
I have a 4-5year old laptop that was pretty powerful at the time that gets 2.7 Gtexel/sec fillrate with 120 parallel shaders and 256MB of VRAM, and now I have a gaming PC that gets 137 Gtexel/sec fillrate with >1500 parallel shaders (and all running twice as fast) and 2GB of VRAM. Graphics power has come a long way in 5 years. Most Rift demos run like crap on that old laptop.
I'd suggest going to Logical Increments, figuring out how much you want to spend and go from there. (And it's not all about the graphics card, your CPU is still important too)
Honestly, it's really not very fun playing Rift demos and games on an old PC -- you miss out on a lot of graphic quality, fluidity, and framerate. And if you can't get a solid 60FPS that never dips, "you're gonna have a bad time".
Drash, maybe I am missing something. Isn't there a catch 22 out there? You want a new graphics card but the rift will only run on a USB 2.0 port? So that would leave you with this moment in time to find a system with a good card that has usb 2.0's still on it.
Am I missing something?
BTW - Titan's is my best experience thus far with the rift which I got 2 days ago."jsiah1" wrote:
Drash, maybe I am missing something. Isn't there a catch 22 out there? You want a new graphics card but the rift will only run on a USB 2.0 port? So that would leave you with this moment in time to find a system with a good card that has usb 2.0's still on it.
Lots of devices that work fine on USB 2.0 have compatibility issues on USB 3.0, and I suspect it's not always the fault of the manufacturer of the device. Virtually all new computers you can buy still include USB 2.0 ports, in addition to the 3.0 ports that are there, both for compatibility and because the cost of implementing USB 2.0 is lower than 3.0. Even the latest desktop Intel motherboard chipset includes both USB 2 and 3 functionality, so the real challenge would be in finding a system that doesn't have them.
