Things Go A Bit Haywire When We Switch Over to Hover Junkers
The author's experience with games on their HTC Vive headset was marred by inconsistent frame times and frequent instances of jutter and frame drops. The data points were not nearly as grouped together as they had been in Hollow Point, indicating a less-than-ideal gaming experience. In contrast, the game Job Simulator brought them back to solid gaming with an average of 85 FPS on average, although they did lose some frames here and there.
The author's PC was able to deliver a smooth gaming experience for games that were more graphically demanding than Hover Junkers. For example, in Space Pirate Trainer, they averaged 85 FPS with consistent frame times across the board. This game was an absolute joy to play on their headset. The author saved their most graphically demanding title, Gallery Call of the Star Seeds, for last. Unfortunately, this game scored just 60 FPS on average with frame time plot points that were divided worse than a bad boob job. Frame time variants constantly switched between 11 and 22 milliseconds, plaguing the game with constant jutter and making the overall experience quite unpleasant.
It's worth noting that the Gallery title used over 5 gigs of VRAM, which may have constrained the performance of their 4-Gig RX480 at some point when playing VR. This made them a bit nervous to try out the Oculus Rift, but they had also forgotten for a moment that Vive titles were still not quite as developed and often felt like unfinished products compared to what you might find in the Oculus store.
However, strapping into the Rift was a delight, with an average of 89 FPS in The Climb. Solid frame timings whose occasional spikes went unnoticed to their eyes. Interestingly, their CPU and memory were being utilized significantly more than they ever had been in the Vive, but not quite to the point where they should be concerned.
The GPU load of their RX480 also fluctuated considerably, unlike their Vive titles which showed mostly a constant 100% usage. It's unclear whether this is due to Rift games using GPU resources more wisely or simply being less demanding. This will likely vary from game to game.
Valkyrie was another title that showed great results, yielding 88 FPS on average and delivering a tightly grouped set of frame times that paved the way for an incredibly immersive and smooth experience. Unfortunately, it scored horribly in their motion sickness test with Apollo 11, scoring a strong average FPS but with beautiful frame times.
Luy's Tale was a walk in the park, yielding solid numbers all around while barely taxing the hardware. Their VR beater rig finally in Oculus Dream Deck showed an 81 FPS average, which is their lowest score on the Rift. However, they shouldn't hold those extreme frame time spikes against it since that data is a result of the screen going black when switching between scenes in the demo.
Even when they did experience some occasional jutter when moving their head quickly side to side, it was quite minimal compared to the few sluggish titles on its rival platform. Overall, it appears that their humble PC delivers a rich and fluid VR experience for the Oculus Rift but tends to be more hit or miss when it comes to the HTC Vive.
The author will have to keep a close eye to see if this trend continues as more polished Vive titles hit the Steam store. They also note that while this build might be a bit underpowered for someone looking into the Vive at the same time, they would almost expect someone on this tight of a budget to have their eyes set on the more affordable Rift.
Buying your VR setup piece by piece might just be the way to go if you're strapped for cash. However, the author notes that while these minimum spec requirements are good enough for today, there's no guarantee that they will be well-suited for the next wave of VR content.
In fact, it's kind of like buying pants that barely fit β while they might work now, they may not be suitable for future demands. The author suggests waiting to see what Nvidia has up their sleeve with the GTX 1060 before building around minimum spec requirements. As of filming this video, they remain impressed with the price-to-performance ratio of the RX480 and the VR experiences they've managed to achieve with this $550 machine.
The final thought is that when building around minimum spec requirements, it's essential to consider whether these specs will be well-suited for future content demands. The author notes that while the current build may not be ideal for the Vive, they are impressed with its performance on the Rift and recommend it for those looking to enter the world of VR gaming.
The author invites their audience to comment on this video and like them if they enjoyed it. They also invite viewers to check out the description below for their Amazon affiliate links and the best darn t-shirts on the interwebs. As always, the author is KY awz Network, and they will see you all in the next video.