The ULTIMATE "Is My PC Good Enough?" (for DK2) Thread

[cybereality]

OK, by popular demand I am making one single "is my PC good enough thread" that will be stickied.

If anyone creates a new thread about this, it will be locked immediately.

Please, this thread should be for DK2 only. Nobody knows what CV1 will need, and if you are only preparing for the next version of the Rift, then you should wait and make an informed purchase at that time.

I will start. I am using a:

- Intel i7-3820 @ 3.6GHz
- Nvidia GTX 680 previously (now GTX 970)
- 16GB DDR3
- Windows 7 64-bit

Mostly all the demos I have tested will work in both Direct and Extended Mode. I haven't done extensive benchmarking, but it's mostly a smooth experience. Some games do have judder, but I'm not sure it's only performance related.

One thing to note: laptops have really poor support for the Rift. Especially with switchable graphics (Optimus) there are hardware limitations that cannot be fixed with a software patch, and will probably never work correctly. If you are buying a new computer today I am STRONGLY RECOMMENDING that you DO NOT purchase a laptop for VR development. You will be sorry if you go down this road and most likely performance will be slow and the games will crash. In almost all cases, a good desktop machine will be significantly better than a laptop you can purchase at the same price.

Please join in with a list of your system specs and if you have a smooth experience with DK2.

[skyegreen42]

Is my PC good enough? I already tried some oculus demos, (w/o the headset) and they ran at 60 fps. 8-) I am going to set the DK2 to 60hz though.

CPU: Intel Core i5 4690k
GPU: Evga GTX 650 superclocked 1 GB
RAM: 4gb
Motherboard: Asus Z97 Plus

Upgrading from a Google Cardboard to this! Exited! I used the software duet display to play Minecrift, Tuscany and other simple demos with my Google Cardboard and iPhone. 😄

[TomSD]

The DK2 is a blurry mess at 60Hz because low persistence mode is disabled. You need to run the DK2 at 75Hz to enable low persistence mode. This is essential.

VR requires a lot of extra computing power, so while it's good that you were able to get 60 fps outside of VR, that doesn't mean you'll be able to get 60 or 75 fps doing the same thing in VR.

GTX 650 is low end. You might be ok in simpler stuff with settings turned down, but for the DK2 you're probably going to want a better GPU like a 970 or 980.

[skyegreen42]

"TomSD" wrote:
The DK2 is a blurry mess at 60Hz because low persistence mode is disabled. You need to run the DK2 at 75Hz to enable low persistence mode. This is essential.

VR requires a lot of extra computing power, so while it's good that you were able to get 60 fps outside of VR, that doesn't mean you'll be able to get 60 or 75 fps doing the same thing in VR.

GTX 650 is low end. You might be ok in simpler stuff with settings turned down, but for the DK2 you're probably going to want a better GPU like a 970 or 980.

That stinks! I am fine with the settings turned down! I actually just got a 650, because I believed I wouldn't do any hard core gaming. I'm not a gamer though, I am trying to learn to develop games. Started with game maker, went to Clickteam (no need for an explanation on why) and I'm trying to learn ue4 so I can make vr games!
If they want the CV1 to sell, it needs to be less demanding.

[TomSD]

Well in that case, rock on dude - you have the power! Start by creating the simplest possible thing on the lowest settings and make sure you can hit 75 fps. You might need to do a bit of research into how to change the settings that matter for performance, and how to optimize your game. Once you're able to hit 75 fps, turn up settings and make your game more complex, one step at a time, and see what happens. If you can make a VR game that runs smoothly on a 650, it should run smoothly on just about anything halfway reasonable.

Keep in mind that the main trouble in VR happens when turning your head. Things can appear to be running smoothly but then when you turn your head, it's bad. This happens when your frame rate is less than 75 fps. You need to really watch your in-game frame rate if you want to create a good experience for people. Find a good way to measure it.

One last thing about UE4: by default, the editor will run at the highest frame rate possible, all the time. So if you're in the editor and your 650 is getting toasty, noisy, and/or you just want to give it a bit of a break, check this out.

[kojack]

"skyegreen42" wrote:
If they want the CV1 to sell, it needs to be less demanding.

There's three primary ways to improve performance:
- Reduce the quality of the rift (worse resolution, smaller fov, lower framerate for low persistence)
- Improve the speed of the gpu.
- More efficient rendering (more advanced rendering like AZDO, simpler graphical environments, faster engines (ie. not UE4))

Oculus control the first one, Nvidia/AMD/Intel control the second and game developers control the third. Apart from making the CV1 worse than we have now, there's not much Oculus can do to make up for a weak gpu or unoptimised game.

[Lancer-AM]

My question is on my graphics card. I am running a R9 290x, I have seen some posts about issues with AMD. Any foreseen issues I need to address?

[bartos]

"ThreeDeeVision" wrote:

"bartos" wrote:

The Titan X you talked me into is now installed :? , oculus still on order so just some triple monitor gaming for the time being. I've been running the 3770K with a huge passive heatsink ever since my PC usage turned primarily to chrome and excel. Coretemp showed 92c after some time with project cars though so going to need to swap that solution out, and hey if I'm doing cooling may as well OC too right? Great seeing this rig come to life again, going to be crazy with oculus!

Nice! I didn't mean to talk you into that beast, but you will enjoy it nonetheless! You will definitely need to update your cooling solution, especially if you are overclocking. Pretty awesome that you can do a triple screen setup off of one single GPU card 🙂

The games and demos working with the DK2 should look awesome on that setup!

Haha yeah the titan is awesome so far, it's got me excited. Chucked in an h100i for the time being and CPU looks like it's testing nicely at 4.4ghz... will continue to tweak while I wait for oculus, and a couple of kinks to work out such as the titan only getting 8x pcie for some reason unknown to me :shock:

[ThreeDeeVision]

"bartos" wrote:

Haha yeah the titan is awesome so far, it's got me excited. Chucked in an h100i for the time being and CPU looks like it's testing nicely at 4.4ghz... will continue to tweak while I wait for oculus, and a couple of kinks to work out such as the titan only getting 8x pcie for some reason unknown to me :shock:

Dang! What mobo you using? My Asus X-99 Deluxe has a physical switch that can change the PCI-E modes, but the default was 16X x2, so you can do SLI with both set to 16X (which I bet will be amazing when they get the VR drivers working with SLI)

[bartos]

"ThreeDeeVision" wrote:

"bartos" wrote:

Haha yeah the titan is awesome so far, it's got me excited. Chucked in an h100i for the time being and CPU looks like it's testing nicely at 4.4ghz... will continue to tweak while I wait for oculus, and a couple of kinks to work out such as the titan only getting 8x pcie for some reason unknown to me :shock:

Dang! What mobo you using? My Asus X-99 Deluxe has a physical switch that can change the PCI-E modes, but the default was 16X x2, so you can do SLI with both set to 16X (which I bet will be amazing when they get the VR drivers working with SLI)

ASUS maximus V, I can force slot 1 to 16x but then sound card stops working, will try some slot shuffling today

edit: sorted, looks like slot 2 is for gpu, and way off topic by now lol

[skyegreen42]

"TomSD" wrote:
Well in that case, rock on dude - you have the power! Start by creating the simplest possible thing on the lowest settings and make sure you can hit 75 fps. You might need to do a bit of research into how to change the settings that matter for performance, and how to optimize your game. Once you're able to hit 75 fps, turn up settings and make your game more complex, one step at a time, and see what happens. If you can make a VR game that runs smoothly on a 650, it should run smoothly on just about anything halfway reasonable.

Keep in mind that the main trouble in VR happens when turning your head. Things can appear to be running smoothly but then when you turn your head, it's bad. This happens when your frame rate is less than 75 fps. You need to really watch your in-game frame rate if you want to create a good experience for people. Find a good way to measure it.

One last thing about UE4: by default, the editor will run at the highest frame rate possible, all the time. So if you're in the editor and your 650 is getting toasty, noisy, and/or you just want to give it a bit of a break, check this out.

Would disconnecting my main monitor when playing oculus games help the GPU load an help it up the frame rate?