NVIDIA has revealed another potential barrier to virtual reality gaming today at the Consumer Electronics Show currently being held in Las Vegas. In addition to a $350 or more price tag for VR headsets like the Oculus Rift, gamers will have to have at least a GTX 970 graphic card (or equivalent) to run them.
As part of NVIDIA’s “VR Ready Program”, a badge will be issued to pre-built PCs that can run VR software and headsets. The company listed the requirements required to earn it:
- Desktop GPU: GeForce GTX 970 or better
- Mobile GPU: GeForce GTX 980 or better
- CPU: Intel Core i5- 4590 equivalent or greater CPU
- A PC with USB 3.0 support,
- 8GB+ RAM
- 2x USB 3.0 ports and HDMI 1.3
- Windows 7 SP1 or newer
In order to run a virtual reality program, PCs must be able to render the game in 90 frames per second, hence the steep system specs. It’ll be interesting to see if headsets like the Oculus Rift are too expensive in terms of both the device itself and updating PC’s for gamers to adopt.
