First VR Setup

Crapulous

C
Hey all,

This year I’m thinking of upgrading my gaming PC and figured I may as well go all the way and jump onto the VR bandwagon.

Unfortunately I seem to have missed out on preordering an HP Reverb G2. I did manage to secure an order for the G2, but it won’t arrive until February 2021.

I’m also still in the hunt for a new video card. I think I can get an AMD Radeon 5700XT, but I’ve been seeing a lot of complaints with this card; some people were having driver issues, others say it can’t run the G2, or any WMR headset, at its native resolution (or sometimes at all). Most of those posts were from earlier this year, though; so not sure if those problems have been resolved.

So, if anybody would be so kind to answer, my questions are:

1) Is the 5700XT good enough for Elite VR?
2) Is the G2 worth waiting for or should I go for something else, like a Reverb Pro or HTC Vive or something else?

I was initially drawn to the G2 because of the high resolution, so I want to make sure I can actually achieve good image quality at that resolution with the rig I’m building.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

CPU: AMD 7 Ryzen 3700X
Mobo: ASUS X570
Memory: 4 x 8 GB DDR4 3600 Mhz
GPU: I dunno? NVidia 3070, 3060 Ti, 2070 Super, 2080; or AMD 5700XT/6800XT.
HMD: TBD
 

Wildcat67

Wildcat67
The G2 is excellent with ED. I think your proposed specs are fine (technically, you wouldn't need more than 16 GB RAM). You will get a great image with your GPU, but get the best one you can - the image really does get better as the resolution is bumped up. Personally, I've stuck to Nvidia cards for VR - getting the drivers right can be tricky, and even the current Nvidia drivers have reported issues. Also, you will very probably need an external USB hub or PCIe USB card - the G2 has issues with the USB on X570 boards.
 

Crapulous

C
Tejat said:
The G2 is excellent with ED. I think your proposed specs are fine (technically, you wouldn't need more than 16 GB RAM). You will get a great image with your GPU, but get the best one you can - the image really does get better as the resolution is bumped up. Personally, I've stuck to Nvidia cards for VR - getting the drivers right can be tricky, and even the current Nvidia drivers have reported issues. Also, you will very probably need an external USB hub or PCIe USB card - the G2 has issues with the USB on X570 boards.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the response :)

The extra RAM is for running virtual machines (work-related).

So still steer clear of AMD cards, due to the usual driver shenanigans then. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I usually buy Nvidia cards anyway; I've usually had to jump through a lot of hoops with AMD. Since I have to wait till February to get the G2, I figured I may as well also wait until the 3060 Ti comes out, which I hear is almost as good as a 3070; but maybe I'll spring for a 3080, if I can find one. I hear that higher resolutions in VR are highly dependent on VRAM, so maybe finding a 3080 is worth it for the G2.

And thanks for the tip about the X570 board; I must have missed that while I was looking around!
 

Crapulous

C
GroG79 said:
When playing ED you will see that all the cards listed perform well. ED is not very heavy on GPU. Now dont go 8 times super sampling ;)
Click to expand...

You got it!
I still have to peruse some of these threads to figure out the best settings for ED. I did know that ED is not very GPU intensive, but I wasn't sure how VR changes all of that!
 

GroG79

G
VR is just more pixels.

I am not up to date on the resolution of the new G2. But it does need to feed two eyes.
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Nothing wrong with AMD's drivers for the 6800. If you aren't getting the G2 until February, it would be worth holding out to see availability of the new cards in the new year. A 3070 or 6800 is cheap and runs E: D on the G2 nicely. My current setup for the G2 is i7-6770 and Radeon 6800. Once I'd cleared all my old NVidia drivers (upgraded from a 980Ti), everything worked perfectly. I've just started playing with the overclocking on the GPU to see if I notice any difference, but I have E: D running on ultra for everything except terrain quality at the moment, and it is smooth as silk. :)
 

Crapulous

C
Crank Larson said:
Nothing wrong with AMD's drivers for the 6800. If you aren't getting the G2 until February, it would be worth holding out to see availability of the new cards in the new year. A 3070 or 6800 is cheap and runs E: D on the G2 nicely. My current setup for the G2 is i7-6770 and Radeon 6800. Once I'd cleared all my old NVidia drivers (upgraded from a 980Ti), everything worked perfectly. I've just started playing with the overclocking on the GPU to see if I notice any difference, but I have E: D running on ultra for everything except terrain quality at the moment, and it is smooth as silk. :)
Click to expand...

While I was looking into the Radeon 6800 and 6800XT, I wasn’t sure if the driver issues carried over from the Radeon 5700XT. Glad to hear it’s working out for you 😊

I did like that the 6800 was less of a power hog, at least compared to RTX 3080. The extra VRAM might also come in handy for the high res I’m going for.

Thanks for the response!
 

Wildcat67

Wildcat67
Crapulous said:
2,160 × 2,160 px per eye, I believe. If your GPU doesn't meet certain specs, though, the G2 runs at half resolution.
Click to expand...
In order to correct for lens distortions, the recommended render resolution is actually higher than this (3184 x 3096). This ensures that the mapped image has at least the pixel resolution of the panel (2160x2160 as you mention). You need a serious graphics card to achieve that, but you can reduce the render resolution if necessary (say 60-70%) and still have a great image.
 

Craith

Volunteer Moderator
Craith
GroG79 said:
VR is just more pixels.

I am not up to date on the resolution of the new G2. But it does need to feed two eyes.
Click to expand...
The one thing that is different, on a screen you won't mind much if you only get 60 fps or even 30 in some areas, especially if things are calm there (like docking). You definitely don't want that in VR.
 

Crapulous

C
Tejat said:
In order to correct for lens distortions, the recommended render resolution is actually higher than this (3184 x 3096). This ensures that the mapped image has at least the pixel resolution of the panel (2160x2160 as you mention). You need a serious graphics card to achieve that, but you can reduce the render resolution if necessary (say 60-70%) and still have a great image.
Click to expand...
Slowly coming around to AMD cards (or at least the 6800).

Correct me if I’m wrong, but higher resolutions run better with more VRAM, right? And the Radeon 6800 comes with 16 GB of VRAM. I know the RTX 3090 has that DDR6X ram, which is a lot faster than other types of ram, but it’s quite a bit pricier and probably harder to get
 

VR andysonofbob

VR andysonofbob
My mate and I are also thinking about going Radeon for once. Liking the idea of the plentiful vRAM for the price paired with the G2
We are also reticent, like the poster above, due to historic driver issues. We both have Ryzen 3600x.
One would assume an amd gfx card paired with amd chipset would minimise issues?
 

Cosmik_Debris

C
GroG79 said:
VR is just more pixels.

I am not up to date on the resolution of the new G2. But it does need to feed two eyes.
Click to expand...

Im fairly sure its not just more pixels - i was running Elite in 7680 x 1440 in pancake mode in ultra settings and getting 60+ fps. With the G2 at 80% in steam VR im forced down to VR medium settings to get decent FPS ... 7680 x 1440 is more pixels than 2160 x 2160 x 2, but the performance is much worse.

I thought my 2080 would be enough, but im pretty definitely going to have to get a 3080 when i can.
 

Dragsham

Dragsham
Overclocked my rtx2060 by about 15%.
The omen pc (not looked at its contents but its only 6 mths old)
I had to because it was jittery driving me nuts.
I'm spoilt. My hmd set to 1.75 supersampling 1.0 and the rest on high medium except environment on ultra.
Using a mod for hud and ohh boy it's wow..I mean just fab.
And that's on a rift S.
Stress tested in roids and massacre multi target combat...lush.
G2 is on its way but apart from more eye candy I'm ok as it is tbh.
Anyways wish Op well in the choices made and g2 can't go wrong.
 

Crapulous

C
Thanks for all the feedback everyone 😊

I think I’ll wait for the G2, and keep an eye out for the Radeon 6800. I’ll aim for that, or an RTX 3070 or better
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Finally got hold of a 5800X and have built my new PC. Did have some teething problems, but nothing unusual for a new build and an hour or two of tweaking has sorted everything out. HP G2 is running beautifully (using USB from the 6800). Got a respectable UserBenchmark result (could probably do some more tweaking, but doubt I'll bother): https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/36957377
 
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