** GUIDE TO VR: WHAT SPECIFICATION OF PC/VGA DO I NEED? **

Ghosteh

Ghosteh

Ghosteh

Soldato
Joined
18 Mar 2006
Posts
4,148
Location
Liverpool
Not been any mention that you required an active adaptor, just a normal DP>mDP cable should be fine.

I also have 3 monitors, and a 980Ti, MSI G6 Gaming in my case, and I am unsure if I need to rearrange cables, or if I can run the Vive or Rift off the HDMI port which is currently unused.

To be honest, when I use the Vive, I'll be moving my system into another room as my office space does not have the area of room scale, so I'm mostly hoping I can run the Rift when I have my 3 monitors plugged in as well, as I don't want to have to unhook them if I don't need to.

http://www.htc.com/managed-assets/shared/desktop/vive/Vive_PRE_User_Guide.pdf < The Pre is almost the same as CV1, and page 13 shows the cabling setup.
 

Ghosteh

Ghosteh

Ghosteh

Soldato
Joined
18 Mar 2006
Posts
4,148
Location
Liverpool
Cavallino said:
You're getting both the rift and vive? May I ask why?

Also, is it possible to use the vive sat down without having to move around?

And must the base stations be setup?
Click to expand...

Originally I ordered the Rift, and wasn't too bothered about room scale, I'd have to move around the spare room of the house to make use of it, and my GF wasn't pleased at the idea, so I didn't give it much thought.

As time went on, and the more I looked into room scale VR, the more it interested me, so when the preorder for Vive arrived, I got straight onto that too.

After leaks, and reviews from GDC have arrived, pretty much all saying that the Rift has slightly better optics, and is more comfortable due to it being lighter, I fully feel that it'll suit seated VR better than the Vive, even though I know the Vive is perfectly capable of seated VR for the games I want to primarily play for longer periods.

The Vive at the moment wins hands down in the other side of VR, roomscale, with games I couldn't have imagined or would have remotely thought of enjoying really intrigue me now, hence why I am willing to splash out on the Vive in my now converted spare room, much to my GF's displeasure.

When Touch controllers arrive, I will likely get them too, as again, reviews from GDC say the feel of them in the hand is slightly better than the Vive, not to say the Vive is bad though. Overall it is very balanced, but I am very pleased to be in a position to enjoy both bits of hardware. The Rift has a good line up of launch games, many of which Oculus have helped develop in some aspect. The Vive has the most interesting hardware launch I feel, and I really can't wait to try roomscale stuff. I just hope when things settle, there isn't too much exclusivity going on which I hope doesn't harm the VR industry as a whole.

As for setup of the base stations, as far as I know, there isn't a lot of setup required. If they are both used wirelessly and don't have the sync cable plugged in between them, they simply get put onto channel C. If you do use the sync cable, one is set to channel A, one is set to channel B.

Full setup guide for the Pre, which is mostly similar can be found here http://www.htc.com/managed-assets/shared/desktop/vive/Vive_PRE_User_Guide.pdf
 
Last edited:

snakefood

snakefood

snakefood

Associate
Joined
18 Jun 2009
Posts
589
Location
Luton
my rig scored 5.9 (just below spec), yet I have a 4GB R9 290X, I was expecting this to be adequate, even if only just? Will I need to upgrade to get stuck into VR gaming?
 

bcham

bcham

bcham

Associate
Joined
4 Jun 2008
Posts
734
Location
west yorkshire
snakefood said:
my rig scored 5.9 (just below spec), yet I have a 4GB R9 290X, I was expecting this to be adequate, even if only just? Will I need to upgrade to get stuck into VR gaming?
Click to expand...

i got 7.9 with my oc r9 290 paired with a i5 2500k at 4.2ghz would this be ok as im thinking of purchasing the rift, but i cant afford to upgrade my pc as well.
 

kration

kration

kration

Associate
Joined
22 Jul 2012
Posts
1,182
Location
UK
snakefood said:
my rig scored 5.9 (just below spec), yet I have a 4GB R9 290X, I was expecting this to be adequate, even if only just? Will I need to upgrade to get stuck into VR gaming?
Click to expand...

I jumped from 5.9 to 6.3 when I upgraded to the Crimson driver and installed 16Gb of RAM. Not sure what was responsible for the increase, but that's on a basic R9 290.
 

Calo

Calo

Calo

Associate
Joined
11 Mar 2016
Posts
361
I would like to suggest anyone thinking of a new build, wait till Q4 2016 at the earliest so you are getting the true VR ready GPU's, Mobos etc. A lot will change in 6 months from now and early adopters generally take a risk.

If you cant wait then so be it, but you probably want to consider how long you will be using this stuff as its a big investment.
 

oops

oops

oops

Associate
Joined
26 Feb 2009
Posts
133
I have an FX-6 6300 running @ 4.42GHz CPU I had it at 4.6 but took it down a little for stability a Sabertooth AMD 990FX mobo 16 gig of ram and a GTX 970 4gb Gpu card and I'm getting 6.8 in the steam vr test

I was thinking of upgrading to an FX-8 Eight Core 9590 4.70GHz and a GTX 980Ti but would it be worth the extra expense, would I see much difference in the oculus?
 

oops

oops

oops

Associate
Joined
26 Feb 2009
Posts
133
Last edited:

BigAl999

BigAl999

BigAl999

Associate
Joined
28 Oct 2017
Posts
2
Hi guys...

Newb here in soooooo many ways. Be gentle.

I have just come back from loosing my VR virginity visiting DNAVR in London... I am inspired...!!!

So much so that I'm looking at potentially investing some cash into this as a business. I have always been a gamer (supposedly too old for it now) and I see this being a great way of turning something I love doing into a business.

So the newbie bit...

I have seen the PC hardware specs I'd need to have to get going and I know where to source the HTC Vive headsets etc. Do I need one PC per station/headset? If I am running games with multiple users do they all require their own PC to run the games? The place I visited I couldn't see more than 1 PC per room (2 rooms) that was running a 2-8 player game and the 2nd room ran 2 individual games independently.

I was looking at potentially setting up 10 x 3m square booths using the steam VR platform.

That may be a problem if the cost to build a PC for each station tops £1500...!!! Add in the headsets at £500 and before I get and bums on seats I'm already aiming to claw back 20K.

If this IS the case then it may be dead in the water before its even begun...

Thanks in advance.
 

Shiari

Shiari

Shiari

Associate
Joined
11 Jun 2013
Posts
1,087
Location
Nottingham
BigAl999 said:
Do I need one PC per station/headset? If I am running games with multiple users do they all require their own PC to run the games?
Click to expand...

Yes, headsets for each, PC's for each, game copies for each. If you were using the Vive you could perhaps get away with fewer Lighthouse base stations (assuming a large open environment, where multiple headsets would share some of these) but essentially the cost doesn't reduce per seat.
 

Wrinkly

Wrinkly

Wrinkly

Permabanned
Joined
31 Aug 2013
Posts
3,364
Location
Scotland
BigAl999 said:
Hi guys...

Newb here in soooooo many ways. Be gentle.

I have just come back from loosing my VR virginity visiting DNAVR in London... I am inspired...!!!

So much so that I'm looking at potentially investing some cash into this as a business. I have always been a gamer (supposedly too old for it now) and I see this being a great way of turning something I love doing into a business.

So the newbie bit...

I have seen the PC hardware specs I'd need to have to get going and I know where to source the HTC Vive headsets etc. Do I need one PC per station/headset? If I am running games with multiple users do they all require their own PC to run the games? The place I visited I couldn't see more than 1 PC per room (2 rooms) that was running a 2-8 player game and the 2nd room ran 2 individual games independently.

I was looking at potentially setting up 10 x 3m square booths using the steam VR platform.

That may be a problem if the cost to build a PC for each station tops £1500...!!! Add in the headsets at £500 and before I get and bums on seats I'm already aiming to claw back 20K.

If this IS the case then it may be dead in the water before its even begun...

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

You maybe better going with the Rift. I read somewhere, Oculus reddit I think, that Oculus are doing licencing deals for such businesses.
 

BigAl999

BigAl999

BigAl999

Associate
Joined
28 Oct 2017
Posts
2
Hi guys thanks for the replies.

Yeah I think unless I can find a better funding model this it is quickly gonna become way to big for me to go into. It's not that I don't think the revenue would be there it's just that I don't think I would be comfortable with these type of upfront costs.

If we're talking per station :
£1500 for a PC
£500 for a head set
£100 cableing
£250 for a booth.

I'm looking at circa 25k before I even start without rates rent and all if the other business costs. Even spread over 3 years (guessing current technology will be prety much defunct by then) 8.5K a year is a lot.

With the PC's if I was to get somone to custom build specifically for my requirements and commissioned 10 units would I still be looking at the sharp end of £1500.

I will be having a look for somone locally who could do this to get a quote. I suppose this is where somone with more technical skills than I could bulk buy and build themselves an army of gaming units...!!!

The other option is of course to lease or hire purchase and offset monthly... more overall money but less of an upfront burden and possibility of fast turnarounds for malfunctions etc...
Just as a comparator GAME HP the headsets at £25 a month (24 months) which is a slight hike ovetall but a reasonable monthly fee. If you scaled up the cost of the PC on similar terms thats £100pcm for each station... starting to sound more doable. Each booth would then in theory be in proffit after abour 4/5hrs of play on average.

Thanks again chaps happy for more comments and advice where you think relevant.

Al.
 

whiteturbo

whiteturbo

whiteturbo

Associate
Joined
7 Jun 2017
Posts
27
This is February 2019, Last post is Oct 2017. So a bit out of date concerning graphics cards and no mention of windows mixed reality either, think i should look for a more dedicated VR forum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom