Buying a PC for VR

[Dustin Flower]

Hello! My roommates and I are thinking of buying a PC from craigslist to have as a "community hub" for the HTC Vive that we are also wanting to purchase. I'm aware of the minimum system specs and am not a complete noob when it comes to PC builds, but I was curious on other thoughts as my roommate has voiced some concern over the longevity of the build versus the increasing development of VR. The build is listed as follows:

- Intel Core i5-6500 Quad-Core
- 16GB Dual-Channel DDR4 RAM
- 1TB Hard Drive
- RX 470 (AXRX 470 4GBD5-3DH/OC)
- EVGA 100-B1-0450-K1
- Wi-Fi Ready
- Windows 10 Home

I am unsure of the MOBO that it's using and what brand RAM exactly, but would there be any cause for concern over needing to upgrade any of those components in a relatively short time frame (thinking 6 months give or take)? It's listed at $600, and recreating the build on pcpartpicker has me at $500 without the MOBO and RAM. We would greatly appreciate an opinion on whether or not this would be a smart purchase, or if we should stick to building our own. Thank you in advance!

 

[esco_sid]

I would probably build new one that rx 470 i dont think will last very long as far as VR goes.
Besides why would you want someone elses computer thats been used when you can build new one for the same price he should be selling it as used price not full what he paid.

 

[photonboy]

The RX-480 4GB or GTX1060 6GB appear to be the minimum GPU spec here (but... )
https://www.vive.com/ca/ready/

I know they lowered the spec at some point so not sure if that still applies.

I think the GTX970 was the original and they dropped the spec to a GTX960? If so, then the RX-470 actually now meets the minimum spec.

SUMMARY:
I believe this system is fine, though it may be a little early to find meaningful VR experiences.

 

[photonboy]

http://radeon.com/en-us/cyberpowerpc-vr-ready/

Yep.
That has an RX-470 and an FX-4350 CPU (weaker than the i5-6500 and not recommended for normal games).

So you meet the minimum spec.

VR isn't quite like the minimum spec you get with the desktop supposedly. From what I've read you should get a smooth experience if you meet the minimum. I'm sure there will be glitches but that's my understanding.

There are several ways that VR attempts to smooth the experience such as asynchronous time warp, and dynamic scaling of processed elements to ensure a consistent frame rate.

 

[Dustin Flower]

Awesome, thank you for the replies! From what I'm gathering, obviously a better GPU would improve the experience (as with a normal desktop, so no surprise there), but that build should certainly be able to handle it well enough?

I was unaware of some of the more in-depth details of VR, so I wasn't sure how "minimum specs" were treated. I'm used to them being the bottom line, where you'll be able to run the game on the lowest of the low settings.

 

[Sakkura]

The other option is to get an Oculus Rift instead of the HTC Vive. Because of the more advanced ASW feature Oculus offers, the Rift can run on much weaker PC hardware than the Vive. The minimum requirement is a GTX 960 or 1050 Ti, which the RX 470 easily exceeds.

The RX 470 is NOT enough for the HTC Vive.

 

[photonboy]

The other option is to get an Oculus Rift instead of the HTC Vive. Because of the more advanced ASW feature Oculus offers, the Rift can run on much weaker PC hardware than the Vive. The minimum requirement is a GTX 960 or 1050 Ti, which the RX 470 easily exceeds.

The RX 470 is NOT enough for the HTC Vive.

It's confusing.
The Oculus Rift has a minimum and recommended (minimum GTX1050Ti/GTX960/RX-460 + i3-6100/FX-4300 CPU)

The VIVE only has the Recommended list showing (RX-480 etc).

So is the MINIMUM for the RIFT still the minimum for the VIVE?

They have a lot of the same software so again it's confusing.

But... apparently the RX-460 is NOT acceptable due to this:
http://hexus.net/tech/features/systems/101575-unleashing-full-potential-radeon-rx-460/?page=2

" What this shows, indirectly, is that while RX 460 is a decent performer, it lacks the innate horsepower to drive a fluid, immersive VR experience."

 

[Sakkura]

So is the MINIMUM for the RIFT still the minimum for the VIVE?

No. The Vive does not have ASW, so you need at least that GTX 970 + Core i5 level of performance.

 

[photonboy]

So is the MINIMUM for the RIFT still the minimum for the VIVE?

No. The Vive does not have ASW, so you need at least that GTX 970 + Core i5 level of performance.

Hmm.. I have some reading to do:
https://developer.oculus.com/blog/asynchronous-spacewarp/

I would be surprised if the VIVE didn't have similar software, though at this point I would NOT assume that without knowing specifically.

Perhaps this is why they recently dropped the Oculus Rift CPU and GPU requirement? I believe so.

To make it more CONFUSING, NVidia Pascal (i.e GTX1070) has SMT which works as a plugin to find similarities between the eye data and reduce the performance requirement.

So a lot of stuff going on in drivers, plugins etc with no clear picture how various cards, HUDs, software compares in different combinations and how things will change over the next YEAR or so.

*From what I've briefly read it doesn't seem like ASW is something the VIVE can't do.
http://radeon.com/en-us/asynchronous-space-warp/

In fact, ASW is ATW + QRQ. We already know that the VIVE has ATW.

In fact, it looks like QRQ can and may already be applied to the VIVE.
https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2016/03/28/asynchronous-shaders-evolved

*Does that look like QRQ is specifically only for the RIFT? It doesn't appear to be so.

 

[photonboy]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/basemark-vrscore-vr-benchmark-testing,4911-3.html

The best info I can find so far suggests that the RESOLUTION for rendering on the VIVE is higher and that is the main reason for the higher system requirements.

I don't think SOFTWARE is going to be superior on either solution. AMD and NVidia appear to be able to take code optimizations from either vendor and integrate that into their ATW, QRQ solutions to take advantage of their GPU specific hardware (i.e. AMD ASync Compute, NVidia SMT, etc).

 

[Sakkura]

In fact, ASW is ATW + QRQ. We already know that the VIVE has ATW.

No. ASW is like ATW but with positional translations added.

The Vive does not support ASW at all, at this point.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/basemark-vrscore-vr-benchmark-testing,4911-3.html

The best info I can find so far suggests that the RESOLUTION for rendering on the VIVE is higher and that is the main reason for the higher system requirements.

I don't think SOFTWARE is going to be superior on either solution. AMD and NVidia appear to be able to take code optimizations from either vendor and integrate that into their ATW, QRQ solutions to take advantage of their GPU specific hardware (i.e. AMD ASync Compute, NVidia SMT, etc).

The Vive and Rift both supersample, that is render at a higher resolution than the actual screens. There's no difference there. The only reason the Rift has lower system requirements is the introduction of ASW in October 2016. At the initial launch in March/April 2016, the system requirements for the Vive and Rift were essentially the same. Now that the Rift has the advantage of ASW support, the system requirements for the Rift are lower. That's superior software if I ever saw it. It's like a driver update for Nvidia or AMD suddenly increasing performance by 50%.

 

[photonboy]

Sakkura,
You said "No. ASW is like ATW but with positional translations added."

AMD wrote that about ASW = ATW + QRQ. Not me. Read the Radeon Technologies link I provided above.

You said Vive does not support ASW at all. Well, it does support ATW, so it's a question of whether they have something similar to QRQ. As I said, I'm not sure but I highly doubt if it's lacking as of TODAY that it will be lacking long.

*AND... I read several articles and the LOWER SPEC also comes with a performance price in some games. They BOTH suffer from issues though. The Rift is dropping FPS a bit low in some games (recently) and the VIVE, also recently, has more latency (due to lack of QRQ probably so yes I am agreeing with you here).

I wouldn't buy either at this point, but I would say in all likelihood that VIVE will get their stuff together.

(and the Zenimax lawsuit of 500M could really hurt the Rift though Facebook money might avoid this being a disaster... I'd lack to add I believe John Carmack is innocent.)

 

[Sakkura]

AMD wrote that about ASW = ATW + QRQ. Not me. Read the Radeon Technologies link I provided above.

That's not what their article says. It actually clearly states that these are three separate things. ATW was implemented by Oculus and enabled across all hardware when the Rift launched (spring 2016). The Vive did not have ATW at that time. Valve introduced their version of ATW in October, but it only worked on Nvidia GPUs. I haven't seen any news of AMD support yet, so the Vive still hasn't really gotten to where the Rift was nearly a year ago.

They've talked about potentially implementing their version of ASW in the future, but so far nothing's confirmed.

You said Vive does not support ASW at all. Well, it does support ATW, so it's a question of whether they have something similar to QRQ. As I said, I'm not sure but I highly doubt if it's lacking as of TODAY that it will be lacking long.

QRQ has nothing to do with ASW. Those are completely different things.

*AND... I read several articles and the LOWER SPEC also comes with a performance price in some games. They BOTH suffer from issues though. The Rift is dropping FPS a bit low in some games (recently) and the VIVE, also recently, has more latency (due to lack of QRQ probably so yes I am agreeing with you here).

I wouldn't buy either at this point, but I would say in all likelihood that VIVE will get their stuff together.

(and the Zenimax lawsuit of 500M could really hurt the Rift though Facebook money might avoid this being a disaster... I'd lack to add I believe John Carmack is innocent.)

The lower spec does NOT come with a performance price. The raw performance is the same with Rift and Vive, the difference is that when you drop significantly below 90 FPS with a Vive, things get uncomfortable. When you drop significantly below 90 FPS with a Rift, ASW kicks in and things stay pretty good. You may see things shaped a little funny here and there, but nothing dramatic, and nothing that will trigger VR sickness.

QRQ does not affect the Vive and Rift differently. It's an underlying technique AMD uses.

Valve and HTC will probably get their stuff together. The software side is on Valve, and they're known for "Valve time" - it may take a while for them to fix bugs or implement features. Right now they're clearly behind Oculus, but it's not like Oculus can (or should) rest on their laurels. Besides, the Oculus Store/Oculus Home (separate from the actual VR SDK/API) is still inferior to Steam as a store and community platform.