since it's looking like we might actually have a job soon and thus have more money than we usually have available to us, does anyone here know much about what the best way to get VR going on a budget is? We want to get a valve index (which i know is far from the cheapest VR thingy out there, but we don't want to give money to facebook), but our current computer has a GTX 1060-6GB and we're led to believe that might not cut it for some VR stuff; what gpu is a good cost/performance balance?
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@Felthry If you have a Windows computer, you can't really beat the Rift S. If you use Linux as your daily driver, you'll want either a Vive Pro or an Index, but those can be costly.
Also, there are untethered options as well! Meaning headsets that don't require a computer connection and can run standalone! The two main contenders are the Oculus Quest and the Vive Cosmos.
(Also, Oculus is owned by Facebook, so that's something to be aware of. You can still run SteamVR on the Rift S, though!)
@The1AndMany @Felthry Why not a Vive on Windows too?
@The1AndMany @IceWolf the rift S is owned by facebook though right?
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@The1AndMany @IceWolf the main reason we want to get the index is that it's 1) supposed to have features the others don't (like hand tracking, I think?) and 2) futureproofing
better to get something better than we need now so it doesn't limit us in the future
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Yup. Everything Oculus is owned by Facebook. If you want to avoid that, it's either Vive or Index.
(Also, sorry, didn't see the parenthetical in the OP. >.<)
> fingertracking
That's actually the Index Controllers, known as "Knuckles". They work with Vive as well.
> futureproofing
If you have the means to get an Index setup, then that'd be our recommendation. It *can* run on lower-end systems, but the downscaling necessary can be CPU-intensive.
@The1AndMany @IceWolf we have a fairly capable cpu, a 3600. not the best out there but pretty good
I'm not sure that we have the means yet but we're maybe getting a job that will pay more than double what we've been getting for the last several years so we might be able to in the near future
it seems like it's not *that* much more expensive than the vive? the index is $1k and the vive seems to be $900
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@Felthry @IceWolf For the Vive Pro, yes. There's also the Vive Cosmos that's ~$700, as we recall.
Of course, one of the bonuses with avoiding Oculus is that thanks to Proton (Valve's fork of WINE), you can run a good number of VR games on Linux. Not all of them, but definitely a lot of the more popular ones. Beat Saber, for instance, is actually guaranteed to work out of the box. And if you know how, you can even install mods, just like on Windows!
@The1AndMany @IceWolf we don't run linux, though, so that's not a concern for us
might switch in the future fi windows continues to get more insufferable and tools like oosu10 can't keep up
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@Felthry @IceWolf Ah. Good to know. (We just assumed Linux because a large proportion of Fediverse users don't like Windows.)
But yeah, if you have the means or will have them soon, we recommend the Index.
Also, once it's time to upgrade your PC, use the performance tools to check whether it's your CPU or your GPU that's the bottleneck. We speak from experience when we say that it's not a pleasant surprise to get that wrong.
@The1AndMany @IceWolf I feel like it's probably the gpu right now for most things; it's a ryzen 3600 cpu so pretty good power there
though it *is* cpu-limited if i try to run higan or bsnes, but show us a computer under $10k that isn't
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@Felthry @IceWolf You said you have a GTX1060-6GB? That's actually not the worst. It's the card we had before our current 1660Ti. You may have to downscale a bit (again, that's mostly offloading cycles onto the CPU), but it should be serviceable with some tweaking.
When it comes time to upgrade, assuming you don't want to go overkill and get something enthusiast-grade, the 1660Ti is probably the most logical next step. About equivalent to a 1070, but cheaper because they stopped making those.
@The1AndMany @Felthry How does AMD compare?
@The1AndMany @IceWolf we always go AMD for desktop cpus and intel for laptop. though our first build was after the ryzen series came out and wowed everyone with its price to performance ratio, and before intel had anything that could remotely compete there (maybe they still don't, i don't know)
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@The1AndMany @IceWolf gpu we could go either way but tend to lean towards nvidia because amd drivers are notoriously buggy
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@Felthry @The1AndMany Oh huh! I didn't know AMD had bad Windows drivers.
I've heard their Linux drivers are way /better/. :3 Never had any issues with the AMD card in my new Mac running Windows, but also it's a Mac so known hardware configuration.
@IceWolf @The1AndMany AMD's known for having buggy windows drivers at launch, but they do fix most of the bugs within a few months
iwrc nvidia just flat out doesn't make linux drivers so you have to use third-party ones
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@Felthry @The1AndMany Nvidia /has/ Linux drivers, but they're a) proprietary, and b) don't work that well.
The third-party Nouveau drivers work better for everything except performance, and for that they're terrible.
AMD I've heard they even have /first-party open source/ ones, which is wow.
@Felthry @The1AndMany [I'm using the Nvidia proprietary drivers at the moment. I'd switch back to Nouveau now that I'm not gaming on this machine, but Nouveau is unusably slow if I recall.]
@IceWolf @The1AndMany AMD's just all around a really good company despite capitalism being a thing. they're a company we don't feel guilty buying stuff from, which is a rarity these days. they treat workers fairly, they seem to actually have morals, the CEO is a woman who iwrc has publicly spoken out against injustices,
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@Felthry @The1AndMany Oh really? Wow, I knew AMD was pretty good but I didn't know they were /that/ good. *wags*
@Felthry @The1AndMany Well I know who I'm buying CPUs from now, not just GPUs. :3
@IceWolf @The1AndMany yeah it's always great to hear about a company actually doing good things for once
like the only ones we know of off the top of our heads are AMD, the Arizona brand of drinks, and Little Caesar's
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I support this; I've been using AMD CPUs since the K6. When I do upgrades, I usually slide a few notches up from the bottom of the line processor, and have been pleased with the value so far.
@moriar @IceWolf @The1AndMany yeah, they've gotten a lot better about power usage lately too, which used to be one of the things people disliked about them and one of the reasons you'd go for a more expensive intel processor (AMD processors before ryzen are so power-hungry that there were memes about cooking food on an AMD processor)
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@IceWolf @The1AndMany amd on the other hand does make first-party linux drivers
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