Is your PC ready for VR?

Check if your PC is VR-ready

With a growing number of PC-VR headsets, such as the HTC VIVE Pro 2 and HP Reverb G2, there's plenty of reason for consumers and businesses to jump into the high-end PC VR market right now. To fully utilize VR, it's important that the PC meets certain hardware requirements, such as a powerful graphics card (GPU) and processor (CPU). Therefore, an important question is: can my PC handle VR? In this blog, we explain for each headset what requirements the PC must meet.

Full rendering

VR gaming on a PC requires more from a PC than a standard computer game. This has to do, in short, with the fact that the resolution in VR glasses is much higher than the standard resolution of a PC game. In addition, VR games must be fully rendered and displayed in a 3D environment with a smooth resolution for a pleasant gaming experience.

Before we go into the specifications of the different VR glasses, we first explain how you can find the specifications of your PC. Note: most PC-VR headsets do not support MacOS.

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How to find your PC's specifications

To determine if your PC can handle VR, there are four important components of the PC that must meet the right requirements:

Graphics card (GPU)
1. Press the Start button and search for 'device manager';
2. Then expand the 'display adapters' section. The graphics card that is in your PC is displayed here.
Processor (CPU) and RAM (memory)
1. Press the Start button and type 'about your pc';
2. Scroll down in the About window to find 'Processor' (also known as CPU) and 'Installed RAM'.
Video output (ports)
1. For this, you need to look at the back of your computer and see which ports are available on the back, especially on your GPU (which is usually lower). The ports can look very similar, so look closely at the shapes of each. Remember that you need a free port to connect your headset.

Now that you are familiar with the specifications of your computer, we can look at the recommended hardware specifications for the different VR headsets. For this overview, we use the most common VR glasses. Is the VR headset that you have (or want to buy) not listed? Then please contact contact our customer service so we can provide you with the right advice!

Oculus Rift S Recommended PC Specifications

Graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 480 or higher
CPU: Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or higher
Memory: 8 GB RAM or more
Video output: DisplayPort
USB ports: 1x USB 3.0 port
Operating system: Windows 10

Oculus Quest 2 with Oculus Link cable PC Specifications

Graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 480 or higher (note: not all graphics cards are suitable for Oculus Link. click here for more info)
CPU: Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or higher
Memory: 8 GB RAM or more
Video output: n/a.
USB ports: 1x USB 3.0 port
Operating system: Windows 10

Valve Index Recommended PC Specifications

Graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 1070 / AMD-equivalent or higher
CPU: Quad Core +
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Video output: DisplayPort 1.2
USB ports: 1x USB 2.0 port (USB 3.0 required for camera throughput), 1x DisplayPort v1.2
Operating system: Windows 10, SteamOS, Linux