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Anyone know how well this works on lower-tier video cards? I have an Nvidia 950 and I'm tempted to buy the Vive. The problem is that the suggested specs are a 9

Anyone know how well this works on lower-tier video cards? I have an Nvidia 950 and I'm tempted to buy the Vive. The problem is that the suggested specs are a 970 minimum, which easily has 30% more performance than my 950.

NegatioN 11y ago
There's a benchmarking tool available on Steam, which will give you an idea. I would assume you could play VR games with reduced texture quality and/or other gfx settings.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
I have a 660, which is a very similar level of performance. It seems strange to be willing to drop $800 on a headset and not spend $400 on a video card. However, the next generation of video cards is the generation that finally gets off the 28nm node, so I'm expecting a huge performance bump. It would be nice to be able to wait for that. HTC claims their 16nm process is 65% faster than 28nm, takes 1/2 the area, and 1/3 the power. For a video card, doubling the # of transistors basically translates into double the performance, and even the lower power requirements enable faster cards because high end cards are often power limited. Throw in a bit of performance improvement from architectural improvements, and it's certainly possible that the next gen of video cards will have 3X the performance of current cards.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  I'm okay with another $350 for the card, but I want to avoid a situation where I spend almost $1200 today only to be told I'll need a new card tomorrow. I don't want a $350 card just as a 6-8 month stop-gap measure. I'd prefer to limp by with my 950 if possible. Seems like that might not work out considering the performance demands of VR.
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    Agreed. There are some blogs out there claiming that nVidia Pascal will be 10x faster than Maxwell[1]. It's been partially debunked, but there's no doubt that it's going to be a big improvement. Fast video cards are important enough to VR that if that kind of power is available, it's going to be used. A 970 may be enough now, but I don't think it's going to be enough for long. 1: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-gpu-gtc-2015/ http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-gpu-gtc-2015/
scraft 11y ago
We have a 960 GTX at work, and it really doesn't cut it for the content currently available on the Vive. It seems 980 is really what you need to have to get a decent experience, and to be honest 980 TI would be ideal (although the cost is intense..)
Alphasite_ 11y ago
Try the test tool on this page: http://store.steampowered.com/vive/ http://store.steampowered.com/vive/
Alphasite_ 11y ago
Try the test tool on this page: http://store.steampowered.com/vive/ http://store.steampowered.com/vive/
matt_m 11y ago
I have a Vive (Pre) and tested it on some older equipment. Less demanding apps like Tilt Brush will even work on older cards like the 750 Ti, but >50% of the available demos so far won't run at that level. A 950 is much faster and not too far from a 680 though, and Valve is working on lowering the performance requirements and made their portal demo work at 90fps at that level. They are going to be giving a talk at GDC in a couple weeks about their rendering technology to dynamically adjust quality settings to maintain FPS on lower cards, which they will be integrating into Unity so most developers will have access to it. Anyway, I think it would probably be OK to order it now and expect to have access to a reasonable percent of the content, and then wait a few months to upgrade the GPU when the next gen from AMD and Nvidia comes out.

NegatioN 11y ago

There's a benchmarking tool available on Steam, which will give you an idea. I would assume you could play VR games with reduced texture quality and/or other gfx settings.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

I have a 660, which is a very similar level of performance. It seems strange to be willing to drop $800 on a headset and not spend $400 on a video card. However, the next generation of video cards is the generation that finally gets off the 28nm node, so I'm expecting a huge performance bump. It would be nice to be able to wait for that. HTC claims their 16nm process is 65% faster than 28nm, takes 1/2 the area, and 1/3 the power. For a video card, doubling the # of transistors basically translates into double the performance, and even the lower power requirements enable faster cards because high end cards are often power limited. Throw in a bit of performance improvement from architectural improvements, and it's certainly possible that the next gen of video cards will have 3X the performance of current cards.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
I'm okay with another $350 for the card, but I want to avoid a situation where I spend almost $1200 today only to be told I'll need a new card tomorrow. I don't want a $350 card just as a 6-8 month stop-gap measure. I'd prefer to limp by with my 950 if possible. Seems like that might not work out considering the performance demands of VR.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  Agreed. There are some blogs out there claiming that nVidia Pascal will be 10x faster than Maxwell[1]. It's been partially debunked, but there's no doubt that it's going to be a big improvement. Fast video cards are important enough to VR that if that kind of power is available, it's going to be used. A 970 may be enough now, but I don't think it's going to be enough for long. 1: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-gpu-gtc-2015/ http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-gpu-gtc-2015/

scraft 11y ago

We have a 960 GTX at work, and it really doesn't cut it for the content currently available on the Vive. It seems 980 is really what you need to have to get a decent experience, and to be honest 980 TI would be ideal (although the cost is intense..)

Alphasite_ 11y ago

Try the test tool on this page: http://store.steampowered.com/vive/ http://store.steampowered.com/vive/

Alphasite_ 11y ago

Try the test tool on this page: http://store.steampowered.com/vive/ http://store.steampowered.com/vive/

matt_m 11y ago

I have a Vive (Pre) and tested it on some older equipment. Less demanding apps like Tilt Brush will even work on older cards like the 750 Ti, but >50% of the available demos so far won't run at that level. A 950 is much faster and not too far from a 680 though, and Valve is working on lowering the performance requirements and made their portal demo work at 90fps at that level. They are going to be giving a talk at GDC in a couple weeks about their rendering technology to dynamically adjust quality settings to maintain FPS on lower cards, which they will be integrating into Unity so most developers will have access to it. Anyway, I think it would probably be OK to order it now and expect to have access to a reasonable percent of the content, and then wait a few months to upgrade the GPU when the next gen from AMD and Nvidia comes out.