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What is a VR ready PC? How to check if your laptop is VR ready?

What is a VR ready PC? How to check if your laptop is VR ready?

Windows seems to be the operating system of choice for PC gamers. Of late, the power of the PC and virtual reality gaming has enabled game developers to spring their fantasy worlds to life. As such, it has become essential to make Windows devices ready for Virtual Reality gaming. Fortunately, most devices running the latest version of Windows 10 feature this capability. Some can be made compatible if they lack this feature. In this post, we will first see what a VR ready PC is, and then we will show you how to check if your laptop is VR Ready

What does a VR ready PC mean

Virtual Reality or VR ready PC means a device that is capable of offering immersive gaming with richly detailed, three-dimensional graphics, comfortable gear and natural movements. This helps in creating a lifelike environment, made possible via  powerful processors and lightning-fast graphics cards that render systems breathtaking images and an augmented reality.

Check if your PC is VR ready

There are some tools like Oculus Rift Compatibility Check Tool, HTC Vive Check Tool and the SteamVR Performance Test Tool that can help you quickly check if your Windows 10 PC is VR ready. Let us take a look at them.

Oculus Rift Compatibility Check Tool

Oculus, an American technology company, recently released a nifty tool that quickly scans your system and lets you know if your system meets the VR headset's requirements. It performs a thorough checking of your system and gives details if you can tweak to meet or exceed [the recommended] system specifications to make your PC virtual reality compatible.

For checking, if your PC meets the minimum or recommended system specifications to power Oculus Rift, download the Oculus Rift Compatibility Check Tool.

Now, run 'Rift Compatibility Check' tool on your PC.

After running for a while, the compatibility check tool will display results and inform you whether your computer meets or exceeds the recommended system specifications. If your computer meets or exceeds the recommended system specs, you should be able to power the full Rift experience.

If not, you can expand entries that have a cross marked against to check what you have currently installed, and anything you should do to upgrade. Please note that if your PC fails to meet the minimum system specs, your computer may not be able to run the Rift at all.

You can download the  tool by clicking here.

By the way, here are the recommended and minimum system specifications needed to power Oculus Rift.

Recommended Specs

Video CardNVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPUIntel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
Memory8GB+ RAM
Video OutputCompatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports3x USB 3.0 ports, plus 1x USB 2.0 port
OSWindows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer

Minimum Specs

Video CardNVIDIA GTX 960 / AMD Radeon RX 470 or greater
CPUIntel i3-6100 / AMD FX4350 or greater
Memory8GB+ RAM
Video OutputCompatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports1x USB 3.0 port, plus 2x USB 2.0 ports
OSWindows 8 or newer

Kindly Note that certain experiences on the Rift require a computer system exceeding Oculus's minimum or recommended specs.

Read: How to stream Xbox One games to your Windows 10 PC with Oculus Rift.

HTC Vive Check Tool

The tool will scan your system to find if it meets the minimum recommended specifications to run Vive. the whole scan takes very less time (few seconds to some minutes). Once the test is complete, the results are displayed informing a user if his computer can run Vive or not.

If your computer doesn't meet the requirements, it will request you to upgrade to a fully compatible system.

 

Click here to download it.

SteamVR Performance Test tool

The tool grades a PC's VR readiness by displaying three colors

  1. Red - indicates your PC is not ready or it does not support virtual reality.
  2. Yellow - Signals your PC is VR Capable and supports virtual reality environment.
  3. Green signals - Your PC is completely VR Ready.

Apart from these 3 grading systems, HTC Vive tool also gives the average fidelity rating based on a numerical and Low/Medium/High/Very High scale.

When you run the test for your PC, the tool reveals the percentage of tested frames that were below the 90 frame per second recommendation.

The minimum essential required PC specs to run the HTC Vive headset include:

  1. 64-bit version of Windows 7
  2. 2.4 GHz dual-core CPU

Alternatively, if a CPU runs a quad-core processor and clocks the speed around 3.4GHz, then it is almost VR Ready. If the CPU speed exceeds this limit, then the PC fares well. Most of the PC running the latest version of Windows - Windows 10 are VR ready. Go get it here.

If your PC doesn't meet the system specifications needed to power VT, you may need to upgrade your computer to make sure it meets the required components.

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