Advice for My VR config

[Virgile]

Hi there.

I feel I'm finally ready to jump into VR with an oculus rift so Im looking for advices about my config.
Here is my current config :

Graphic card : SAPPHIRE ATI Radeon HD7950 3072 Mo / 3 Go GDDR5 - 925/55OO MHz - PCI Express 3.0
CPU : AMD CPU FX8350 Socket AM3+ 4GHz 16Mo ( 8M+8M)
Motherboard : MSI 760GA-P43 (FX) Socket AM3+ Chipset AMD 760G - DDR3 - 1x PCIE ...
RAM : DDR 3 G.Skill Ripjaws X Series: 16 Go ( 4x4Go)- PC 12800 1600 Mhz ...
Power : Corsair CX Bronze - 500W


I found a second hand Gtx 1070 KFa2 for 290 euros. So I got questions about this one.

Do you think :
It's enough to run Elite on VR ?
The price is right ?
It's compatible with my current config CPU, Motherboard, Power?


Thank you in advance.

 

[The Gael]

You'll most likely need a full system upgrade. But you might get by with everything on low. ED in VR is extremely taxing on the cpu and gpu, and that cpu will bottleneck your gpu, without a doubt.

EDIT: As for the price, I'm not sure if this is god or not, I moved to Australia so I'm no longer accustomed to the euro pricing for components, hopefully someone else will have the answer for that.

Also 500w for that gpu and the fx8350 may be cutting it too close for comfort. But it should get by. Just don't overclock or anything, just in case.
but you'll definitely need a new system.
In fact, if I were you, I'd concentrate on that before VR. Expensive, I know.

 

[Jezzer]

I'm running the following in my system and VR is OK but definitely alot of room for improvement.

I6700K oc'd @ 4.7
32GB ram xmp profile @ 3000Mhz
Gigabyte GTX 1070 Founders edition.
M.2 HD for system drive & ED + others.
Oculus rift.


Still new(ish) to VR and have found that in ED & DCS to get anything playable (no juddering/large FPS drops) I have to have the settings pretty much low or off on most settings.

CPU runs between 45 - 55% (ED) & GPU appears to be maxed out especially when in a res zone or near a station.

SS set to 1 & HMD image quality set to 1.25 (45FPS in or around stations, 90FPS in Supercruise & 45+ FPS varies on planets)

However I have found that the VR experience is amazing & ED is like a different game (for the better). DCS is incredible.

I'm looking to get a new/other GFX card. The new Nvidia RTX cards look tempting, but I'm waiting for some 3rd party performance specs to become available. 1080ti is also tempting as i think this would be a big boost over the 1070.

Hope that helps your decision process a bit.

 

[Virgile]

Thanks for the answers it helps a lot.

When you say I need a new system do you mean only new GC and CPU. Or even new MB, Ram, Power...etc

Also fo that : " Also 500w for that gpu and the fx8350 may be cutting it too close for comfort."
You think I should keep my ancient GC and use it with the 1070 I was planning on removing it has I thought it would cause some compatibility problems...

 

[The Gael]

Thanks for the answers it helps a lot.

When you say I need a new system do you mean only new GC and CPU. Or even new MB, Ram, Power...etc

Also fo that : " Also 500w for that gpu and the fx8350 may be cutting it too close for comfort."
You think I should keep my ancient GC and use it with the 1070 I was planning on removing it has I thought it would cause some compatibility problems...

Yes I meant building an entirely new pc. The gtx1070 is compatible with your computer. But you'll be playing with most settings on low.
As for using the two Graphics cards together, that wont work. Unfortunately impossible with technology today. If you want 2 cards together, they have to be the exact same cards.
Not that it matters anyway, because in VR only one card can work, for now.
This guy is using the fx8350 https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ll-be-jealous-come-see-my-latest-imagineering
Try messaging him, ask him how it runs.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Thanks for the answers it helps a lot.

When you say I need a new system do you mean only new GC and CPU. Or even new MB, Ram, Power...etc

Also fo that : " Also 500w for that gpu and the fx8350 may be cutting it too close for comfort."
You think I should keep my ancient GC and use it with the 1070 I was planning on removing it has I thought it would cause some compatibility problems...

You should remove the old gpu, no point keeping it in if you have the 1070.

As for the psu, if the cpu isn't overclocked heavily the 500W is plenty.

Ideally you'd upgrade the cpu as well, but that means motherboard and ram too (since your current board has ddr3 and the new stuff is all ddr4), can get expensive quickly. Your cpu meets the ED horizons VR min spec.

 

[Virgile]

Thank you I'm gonna try first with the 1070 then I'll probably upgrade the cpu if needed.

 

[Pville_Piper]

The 1070 is more than adequate on medium settings as I ran a 970 for quite some time. If you experiment with the settings you can run a mix of anything from ultra to low as some things don't tax the GPU much. As for the CPU, I don't know enough about AMD processors to judge. Should be a very nice upgrade.

I would get another power supply, it is always better to run bigger as it will be more efficient and run cooler.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I really don't get why people keep recommending increasingly large psu's. This system will only reach 350W if you artificially stress the cpu and gpu to 100% with stresstesting tools. While gaming you'll be nowhere near.

 

[Virgile]

I'll keep that in mind ty.

So Im' gonna buy the second hand 1070 tomorow that's the first time I do that and I'm kind of a noob for anything related to hardware.

Any advice? Should I run some free software to test the card?
The guy told me it's still under guarantee for a year.

 

[blastard]

This guy is using the fx8350 https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ll-be-jealous-come-see-my-latest-imagineering
Try messaging him, ask him how it runs.

Yes - that'll be me.
Although my system has been running well in VR, I never had any problems until the previous ED update at beginning of Summer.
Since that update I keep getting the error "display driver NVIDIA windows kernel mode driver etc etc has stopped responding" every now and again. I've tried half dozen nvidia drivers and problem still occurs. Can sometimes have a 1-7hr sessions and it wont happen, other times it may happen 2-3 times in an hour, can happen anytime but I put up with it for now. It is a pain tho coz I lose ED graphics on my main screen (tho sound in game can still be heard) and oculus goes blackscreen. I can only ctrl-alt-del out of ED and I get oculus home back in cv1 straight away. I then need to restart ED.
The 8350 (and coz I'm still on win7) is now a big bottleneck in my VR system and I'm planning to upgrade to intel (i5 or i7) and decent MB to suit. I'll stick with the 1080 I already have tho.

Cmdr Blastard

 

[The Gael]

I really don't get why people keep recommending increasingly large psu's. This system will only reach 350W if you artificially stress the cpu and gpu to 100% with stresstesting tools. While gaming you'll be nowhere near.

I think it's a fear that has developed over the years, the psu is a bit of a boogey man. Skimp out on a psu and the consequences are expensive. I always find it's best to over estimate your power requirements as to rule out any psu issues.

I'll keep that in mind ty.

So Im' gonna buy the second hand 1070 tomorow that's the first time I do that and I'm kind of a noob for anything related to hardware.

Any advice? Should I run some free software to test the card?
The guy told me it's still under guarantee for a year.

First uninstall the amd drivers in the windows control panel.
Then head here and grab the latest nvidia driver https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx
And boot it up.
I wouldn't worry too much about testing your card, but if you want, head here and grab the valley benchmark https://benchmark.unigine.com/valley
Write down your results and compare with some vids on youtube.
The results don't have to be exactly the same, but as long as it's relatively close, you have nothing to worry about.

Yes - that'll be me.
Although my system has been running well in VR, I never had any problems until the previous ED update at beginning of Summer.
Since that update I keep getting the error "display driver NVIDIA windows kernel mode driver etc etc has stopped responding" every now and again. I've tried half dozen nvidia drivers and problem still occurs. Can sometimes have a 1-7hr sessions and it wont happen, other times it may happen 2-3 times in an hour, can happen anytime but I put up with it for now. It is a pain tho coz I lose ED graphics on my main screen (tho sound in game can still be heard) and oculus goes blackscreen. I can only ctrl-alt-del out of ED and I get oculus home back in cv1 straight away. I then need to restart ED.
The 8350 (and coz I'm still on win7) is now a big bottleneck in my VR system and I'm planning to upgrade to intel (i5 or i7) and decent MB to suit. I'll stick with the 1080 I already have tho.

Cmdr Blastard

Absolutely love your cockpit. Wish I were as technically minded as yourself. As for that kernel issue, have you tried updating your graphics driver?
If you're going to go for intel, I suggest going straight for the i7 8700, I've been using it for the past week, and have zero fps issues in any game(including the Total War series).
I used to get 35-45fps in stations with my i5 6500 on low settings. Now it's straight 90+ with everything maxed. It's incredible. Expensive, but incredible.
And in a rig like yours, you'll want the best.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

I'd hold off a little myself on buying an Intel cpu.

The i9 9900k is looking good. And the new soldered heat transfer lid should allow for a solid boost.
Specced to run at 5ghz stock.

And another two cores with hyperthreading for 16 threads..

 

[Virgile]

Thank you again.
I bought the 1070 this morning and only saw your message after so I made a few mistakes.

So the guy come, I put the car and start and update nvidia driver, I didn't knew I had to remove Amd's driver I did it few minutes ago after seeing your message.

So Yesterday I googled about testing GC and found Furmark software, so before I buy I ran an instensive stress test for 15 minutes the card went up to 90C° but no crash or other problems.
The card was bought in January 2018, and so it's still under guarantee, but I made another mistake not reading carefuly the bill ( I was taalking with the guy...) apparently he bought 8 card!
So now I suspect he was mining bit coins with it which kind of worries me...
I ran rise of the Tomb raider every settingfs full for a few minutes, it was stable the car was around 50C 60C° which I guess is OK.

I also ran the unigine valley benchmark ( tahx again) and here are the results :


Unigine Benchmark 1.0

FPS 86.6
Score : 3621

Min FPS : 19.2
Max FPS : 148

System :
Platform : Windows 8 ( build 92000) 64 bits (Weird cause Im under windows 10 professional )
CPU model : AMD FX 8 cores 8350
GPU model : Unknown gpu ( 256Mb)*1 ( Weird cause the 1070 is running )


Settings : Direct3D11
Mode : 1920*1080 2*AA fullscreen
preset : Custom
Quality : Ultra

It seems kind of Ok to me.. compared to : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgClxf1lVAk

PS : Sorry my english is not really good, and I probably look like a cmplete noob ( cause I'm one )...

 

[The Gael]

Thank you again.
I bought the 1070 this morning and only saw your message after so I made a few mistakes.

So the guy come, I put the car and start and update nvidia driver, I didn't knew I had to remove Amd's driver I did it few minutes ago after seeing your message.

So Yesterday I googled about testing GC and found Furmark software, so before I buy I ran an instensive stress test for 15 minutes the card went up to 90C° but no crash or other problems.
The card was bought in January 2018, and so it's still under guarantee, but I made another mistake not reading carefuly the bill ( I was taalking with the guy...) apparently he bought 8 card!
So now I suspect he was mining bit coins with it which kind of worries me...
I ran rise of the Tomb raider every settingfs full for a few minutes, it was stable the car was around 50C 60C° which I guess is OK.

I also ran the unigine valley benchmark ( tahx again) and here are the results :


Unigine Benchmark 1.0

FPS 86.6
Score : 3621

Min FPS : 19.2
Max FPS : 148

System :
Platform : Windows 8 ( build 92000) 64 bits (Weird cause Im under windows 10 professional )
CPU model : AMD FX 8 cores 8350
GPU model : Unknown gpu ( 256Mb)*1 ( Weird cause the 1070 is running )


Settings : Direct3D11
Mode : 1920*1080 2*AA fullscreen
preset : Custom
Quality : Ultra

It seems kind of Ok to me.. compared to : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgClxf1lVAk

PS : Sorry my english is not really good, and I probably look like a cmplete noob ( cause I'm one )...

That seems like a perfectly working 1070. Wouldn't worry too much about the mining, as it was only since january.
90c for the 1070 is okay, this card can get as high as 94 so no need to worry, especially because furmark can really heat up the card.
It should be better in normal games, as you can see with tomb raider.
But if it happens again, you can set a fan curve in msi afterburner settings that will keep it nice and cool.
The valley score is a little bit low, but that could be a few factors.
Such as your cpu may be bottlenecking you a little bit, it could be the video had a custom gtx1070 or he overclocked it.

EDIT: Your english is actually really good.