(VR) AMD vs Nvidia in 2025

[dr00p]

Hello all,

The tale of Nvidia vs AMD is old as computers. But in my eyes something of the ancient past. Funny thing is, here on this VR part of the forum, there is a lot of ancient posts to be read. Especially in the pinned threads; SLI in 2015. Which was funnily about at it's end, if not long dead already, at that time already.
Anyway, AMD has cached up. I have had a weak spot for AMD in gaming, for starters because I'm not an rich man. Plus even in the Radeon days I always thought AMD is making their chips for Sony Playstation and a lot more that I can't think of; it's not as bad as internet would like you to believe (in those days). (And yes, Nvidia was way ahead, undoubtedly)

I should have maybe do a search, but I'm writing a bit out of memory from what I have read here last days. But I noticed there is still a preference for Nvidia. Or at least in those very old topics.

So in my vision, since RX5700 (latest one I (my son..) have) and up, I think AMD did pretty well. So my question: Is the statement that Nvidia is (better for VR in Elite) still true? Or can you just as easily use AMD for your adventures these days?

I don't want to start anything btw I have both AMD and Nvidia, and I like them both.

 

[jojon]

Well, I have no experience with this but there is the fact that the most powerful current NVidia card is significantly more powerful than the most powerful current AMD one, if that is what one is shooting for, but that that power comes at an absolutely insane price -- decent-used-car price...

I also believe (would be happy to be wrong) that if one want to try to use any hack that attempts to finagle some degree of foveated rendering into the game's fragment shaders, those hacks are dependent on NVidia VRS, and won't work with equivalents.

Otherwise, as far as I know, problems that the game had with drawing orbit lines using AMD cards have been addressed, and AMD have not been as skimpy with VRAM as NVidia these last generations.

Forum member Morbad has written about having experieces with both options previously, and is generally very knowledgeable on tech issues -- hopefully he'll see your post and offer better advice.

 

[aXeL]

I also believe (would be happy to be wrong) that if one want to try to use any hack that attempts to finagle some degree of foveated rendering into the game's fragment shaders, those hacks are dependent on NVidia VRS, and won't work with equivalents.

I've been using OpenComp for years, specifically for foveated rendering however I've never come across anything in the documentation to suggest that feature is NV specific ( he says having never used it with anything other than NV ). Pretty sure my old 970M doesn't support VRS so I suspect an AMD user would be ok.

 

[dr00p]

Sorry for my late reaction. But thank you both for answering! I have been reading up a little bit. And from what I read is that AMD seems to be working fine. Although I admit I write that somewhat reluctantly. But I read the same as you say, Jojon, that driver issues has been addressed, in the case of AMD. And in general AMD works fine.

The reason I say I write that reluctantly is simply because of the upperhand Nvidia has had. And I don't have so much experience in VR with the cards.

The Nvidia 5090 is a beastly card. And reading around, it seems that a lot of people seem to overlook that it is essential about twice the gpu than the 5080. In my own words that is. Most reviews falling over the fact it is only" 30%ish faster than an 4090. I don't think I can justify the powerdraw of a 5090.

 

[Neilski]

The Nvidia 5090 is a beastly card. And reading around, it seems that a lot of people seem to overlook that it is essential about twice the gpu than the 5080. In my own words that is. Most reviews falling over the fact it is only" 30%ish faster than an 4090. I don't think I can justify the powerdraw of a 5090.

It certainly has a beastly price and beastly power consumption Each of those would be enough to make it a non-starter for me.
If the only thing about the 5090 that you can't personally justify is the power consumption, then you could massively drop the power consumption (undervolt, clock tweaks, power-limit tweaks) and achieve really good efficiency.
E.g. see here and here for some Reddit threads exploring this. The first link mentions 319 W TBP at ~80% of stock performance (which had 579 W TBP), for well over 40% more power efficiency. You can probably push it even further if you are prepared to sacrifice a bit more performance (while still wiping the deck with any other card money can buy )...

 

[dr00p]

Hehe, I was just about that far I was thinking to myself I don't need that 5090, don't tempt me

And actually, normally I would be on the same side as you in your first sentence. As a normal person