VIVE Hardware Compatibility

[Oracle]

Hi,

 

A little bit about myself, I am an architectural 3D artist (with zero VR knowledge) who wants to explore the possibility of using VR for design visualization.

 

At the moment I really feels like getting myself HTC VIVE Virtual Reality Kit, but Vive Quick Compatibility Check said that my graphics card may not work well with Vive.

 

I understand that the recommended graphics will gives better experience, but as I am only using it for R&D and workflow testing purpose at the moment (not for playing games), I dont really wish to upgrade my graphics card or my PC for now. I rather spend the cash on the VR kit instead. :)

Now the things that I want to know is : With that graphics card issue, do you think I still can setup Vive and have it running on my PC? Or it will not run at all? 

 

My PC Setup, for info : Intel Core i7 CPU X990 3.47GHz, 12 GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 600, Windows 10

 

Please advise.

Thank you so much.

 

 

[CaTaPulT]

Hello.

I am unfamiliar with your graphic card.

What you have to keep in mind is in VR, everything has to be rendered in real time in 3D space, this requires a decently beefy video card to handle all that work. Doesn't matter if it's a game or architecture everything must be rendered in 3D space and best if it's running at 90 Hz refresh rate to prevent ghosting and a lesser motion sickness effect. This is the reason VR requires a higher end video card..... normally, minimums are a GTX 970...... personally I have a GTX 980 with a i7 4790k (4.0 Ghz) and 24 gigs of ram and everything I've tried so far seems to run smoothly with it.

I've had my Vive for 3 weeks now and am still quite happy with it. :)

Regards: Jack

[Milkman]

Im 99% sure the quatro card will "run" the vive.  However, not well at all.  With only 1gb of ram(typical 600?)  it will have a hard time loading textures in a timly manor assuming the GPU on that  budget workstation card can keep up to ask for them.  There will be alot of lost/dropped/low frames, any movement will likely cause major 'lag' and disorientation.  That quatro card is just simply too low end to be effective with VR.  I don't think you would even be able to adequately test with it as the performance would be so bad it would be hard to see what your working on.  I wouldn't recommend this at all.

 

Here is a link to Nvidia's suggested quatro cards for VR.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-vr-ready-systems.html

 

 

[bulloko]

Have you ran any of the "Is your system ready for VR?" applications?

 

LINK - http://store.steampowered.com/app/323910/SteamVR_Performance_Test/

 

This will tell you if your machine is good enough!!

 

Also - I LOVE this site - https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2621/geforce-gtx-980

Great Card DataBase and it shows how yours stacks up to others. I happen to have that GTX 980 which surprisingly is about as good as a GTX1060 (give or take).

[Oracle]

Thanks All for the answers.

 

Yes, I have run SteamVR Performance Test. According to it, even my processor is not good enough for VR. I am using i7 (which is supposed to have more power) but the SteamVR recommendation is i5. Strange.

 

Anyway, I think I just get my PC issue sorted out first then.

Thanks so much!

[Milkman]

The i5 vs i7 thing is always fun.  Just cause its an i7 doesn't make it faster than an i5.  It depends specificly on the model of said i5 or i7 and even the enviroment your using.  i7s TEND to have more threads and more cache, but very old i7s vs new i5s or even moble versions of them put their benchmarks all over the place.