Ryzen for VR?

[Bigtime88]

Anyone else close to upgrading to Ryzen? I know the thing to do is to wait until real world benchmarks are out but the multi-core results look good so far.

On my x5650 Hex core @ 4Ghz I see all my cores being utilized at up to 85% on some so not yet maxed out. Purely single threaded performance, at least for the games I'm playing isn't the priority it seems.

I wonder if I'd still get the "Your computer doesn't meet Rift's recommended specifications". or how long would it take for Oculus to accept it's ok

[kwakaman39]

Looking to build a Ryzen 1600x system too for VR, Having read some of these forums I am having doubts now, 
Also have a FX6300 like Blaqk1. So whats the best FX cpu upgrade that will work well with rift? As a Ryzen build involves a lot more work and money.

[joshua_burkhart]

With the Ryzen 3 1200 released today, budget VR setups get pretty cheap.

EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GAMING, 04G-P4-6251-KR, 4GB GDDR5, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)

$144.99

AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Processor (Released July 27, 2017)

$109

Corsair carbide series 270R case

$59.99

ASRock A320M PRO4 AM4 AMD Promontory A320 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

$68.99

Crucial 4GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Desktop Memory Model CT4G4DFS8213

$32.99 (x2) = $65.98

SeaSonic S12II Series S12II 620 Bronze (SS-620GB) 620W Intel ATX 12 V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

$49.90

WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch

$49.99

SanDisk SSD PLUS 240GB Solid State Drive (SDSSDA-240G-G26) [Newest Version]

$75.93

$144.99 + $109.99 + $59.99 + $68.99 + $65.98 + $49.90 + $49.99 + $75.93 = $625.76

[TaifnKnaifn]

hey! can i play with this budget setup games like robinson, robo recall or lone echo fluently? Do i benefit from more CPU Cores or Clock Speed in VR?

[nangu]

In my opinion, GPU power is more important for VR. Once you start cranking up detail and/or supersampling, CPU power has no effect (speaking of a decent CPU obviously).

I started with the Rift on a FX8350 system, paired with a GTX 1070 card. That config ran everything VR related. Some titles with mid settings, some at high settings, but in general it felt great.

Now I've upgraded to a new R7 1700 rig, with that same GTX 1070 on it. It runs a lot better on CPU intensive games, such us simulators (racing or flight) because the incresed single core performance, but in pure VR titles I'm still behind because GPU power. Smoothness is better tough.

So, in general usage, Ryzen is a long long step forward: increased single thread performance and a lot of cores to use, it helped A LOT to increase FPS in 2D gaming too compared to my FX8350.

In VR, it helped a lot on CPU intensive titles, and helped smoothness in general, but in my experience GPU is a lot more important, so for VR and/or games in general, my advise is to go cheap on CPU and use that money to buy a better GPU. For example, you can get an I5 instead an I7, or R5 1600 on AMD side, and try to get a 1060 or better, a 1070, if you can't afford better parts.

Anyway, I'm super happy with this new AMD's platform, and I recommend it to anyone with FX chips or Intels 2XX, and in my opinion is even a better buy than any 4C Intel has to offer right now for the same price tag.

[RonsonPL]

nangu said:

In my opinion, GPU power is more important for VR. Once you start cranking up detail and/or supersampling, CPU power has no effect (speaking of a decent CPU obviously).

I started with the Rift on a FX8350 system, paired with a GTX 1070 card. That config ran everything VR related. Some titles with mid settings, some at high settings, but in general it felt great.

Now I've upgraded to a new R7 1700 rig, with that same GTX 1070 on it. It runs a lot better on CPU intensive games, such us simulators (racing or flight) because the incresed single core performance, but in pure VR titles I'm still behind because GPU power. Smoothness is better tough.

So, in general usage, Ryzen is a long long step forward: increased single thread performance and a lot of cores to use, it helped A LOT to increase FPS in 2D gaming too compared to my FX8350.

In VR, it helped a lot on CPU intensive titles, and helped smoothness in general, but in my experience GPU is a lot more important, so for VR and/or games in general, my advise is to go cheap on CPU and use that money to buy a better GPU. For example, you can get an I5 instead an I7, or R5 1600 on AMD side, and try to get a 1060 or better, a 1070, if you can't afford better parts.

Anyway, I'm super happy with this new AMD's platform, and I recommend it to anyone with FX chips or Intels 2XX, and in my opinion is even a better buy than any 4C Intel has to offer right now for the same price tag.

It's always "as fast as the slowest component of your PC". Naturally you could say CPU doesn't matter even if you used a CPU 2x slower than your old FX CPU, if only you tested a game that is a mobile game port, but at 16K resolution 😉

The lower latency, the more frames per second, the more important minimal fps is, the more important is the CPU. So since VR is such a scenario, where latency is very important, the CPU is most important as well.
Unfortunately if Zen CPUs are significantly slower in latency-dependand scenarios in VR, compared to Intel's CPU from 2011, and new Intel CPUs manage to be even 50% faster, which is like 5-10 years of technological advancement nowadays, AMD Zen cannot be called "a good CPU for VR".

It the app/game was designed around slow CPU, then sure, it will be OK. But PC VR needs much ritcher scenes, much bigger and most advanced games, with more geometry, with better physics, with lower input lag for controllers, etc. 
PC VR requires CPUs much better even than i7700K after OC. Of course noone will create a game that requires a CPU that noone can buy (nitrogen cooled), but still. Every 10% matters, and for anyone who is a VR enthusiast and is already angry about things going so utterly slow (normal res VR 2 years away, big AAA games many years away etc.) it's obvious that Intels are the only choice.
Zen might be good for VR if you look at what is already available for PC VR, or for developing. For a demanding gamer/developer, who enjoys the progress and new possibilities, Zen does not exist, and I write that with true sadness. I wish AMD could compete with Intel at this area, but it simply does not, and no Zen2 or Zen3 version, 10% faster than Zen1, will change it, I'm afraid. That means 2-4 years of stagnation. Intel won't release anything which will be significantly faster than OC'ed 7700K in low latency scenarios, since AMD has nothing to compete for many years.
And that will delay the superb PC VR even further. 
How unfortunate. 😞
It's good that it influences the prices of CPUs that offer significantly more than console/mobile VR though. 🙂

AMD was in huge trouble a few years ago and releasing a CPU takes a lot of time. Compromising gaming performance at the design stage, to come up with something more profitable in server/computing market, might've been the only way to go. Would be stupid to get angry at AMD now, when it's quite possible that present AMD is not to be blamed for, cause it was the 2008-2010 stupid management, who crippled AMD so much with their dumb decissions ("Need to cut the costs? Fire the best engineers, lower the R&D budgets, what could go wrong?" and other brilliant ideas like this one).

One day, for example, VR can be done with 400fps interpolated to 1200fps. It will allow for non-low persistence modes, without any blur, and better brightness (and comfort). But with +30% increse per 5 years, this won't happen soon. That's just one of examples where more CPU power could be put to good use. There are many more. With practically no competition, things will continue to go ahead at +1%/year rate.