HTC Vive On A Laptop - Question: Can I Run It?

[SirNormiePepe]

Hello, I have an Asus laptop containing a Nividia 840m and a core Intel i7. I was wondering if it could support the Vive well enough to play a small game smoothly, and if not, would it be very noticable? I tried running the steam VR test app to see, but it kept auto selecting my intergrated graphics card rather then my Nvidia one, by the benchmark shown it seemed to run nicely - but that could just be the fact the resolution is so small, any help would be much appreciated!

[Super Bambaspis]

Your GPU is on average 5.5 times slower in gaming than the what people consider the mic spec GPU, the GTX 970. Because of the 840m's terrible memory bandwidth, the higher resolution of VR may drop your performance drastically - well bellow the 5.5x lower general performance.

You are simply far, far too far behind the min spec for VR to be usable at all.

Sorry!

[FalconFour]

You should be able to force a GPU to a certain app using the nVidia control panel (right-click your desktop, should be visible there). Might need to do that in order to get a realistic measurement from the performance test.

The performance test is short, but was my guideline for tuning the VR rig I put together with an AMD HD 7970. It barely passed, and hit the mid-range of acceptable when I put a mild OC on it.

You should also be able to force your GPU to be used for everything, by going into your BIOS (or UEFI) settings and switching the graphics to use "discrete graphics" instead of "switchable" or "integrated". You can access those settings in Windows 10 - when booted with UEFI - by typing "startup", select "advanced startup options", then select the "troubleshooting" and "change firmware settings". That should reboot you to the settings menu for your PC where you can hunt for the setting (which varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer). When you reboot with the new setting, Windows will likely need to install a new graphics driver, so give it another reboot once it does, then try the test again!

Oh... but spoiler? Yeah, sad to say I'm certain it's going to fail. :( :( nVidia's model specs go by 3 digits - generation, class, modifier. So 840 is generation 8, class 4, modifier "m" for mobile. Mobiles run slower than desktop cards, and class 4 is pretty middle-of-the-road (not designed to be fast for its time). Being as though the minimum is a 970 (gen 9, class 7), you're a pretty far distance from the minimum. Running VR on that will either not work at all, or will be laggy enough to make you sick (vomit-sick).

[SirNormiePepe]

Originally posted by FalconFour:

You should be able to force a GPU to a certain app using the nVidia control panel (right-click your desktop, should be visible there). Might need to do that in order to get a realistic measurement from the performance test.

The performance test is short, but was my guideline for tuning the VR rig I put together with an AMD HD 7970. It barely passed, and hit the mid-range of acceptable when I put a mild OC on it.

You should also be able to force your GPU to be used for everything, by going into your BIOS (or UEFI) settings and switching the graphics to use "discrete graphics" instead of "switchable" or "integrated". You can access those settings in Windows 10 - when booted with UEFI - by typing "startup", select "advanced startup options", then select the "troubleshooting" and "change firmware settings". That should reboot you to the settings menu for your PC where you can hunt for the setting (which varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer). When you reboot with the new setting, Windows will likely need to install a new graphics driver, so give it another reboot once it does, then try the test again!

Oh... but spoiler? Yeah, sad to say I'm certain it's going to fail. :( :( nVidia's model specs go by 3 digits - generation, class, modifier. So 840 is generation 8, class 4, modifier "m" for mobile. Mobiles run slower than desktop cards, and class 4 is pretty middle-of-the-road (not designed to be fast for its time). Being as though the minimum is a 970 (gen 9, class 7), you're a pretty far distance from the minimum. Running VR on that will either not work at all, or will be laggy enough to make you sick (vomit-sick).

Thanks for the info! Hopefully one day they will make a model in the future that will run on slower hardware

[FalconFour]

I'm pretty sure it's only going to go up from here :( Much of the demand is that it has to render each frame twice, once for each eye, and it has to do it quickly enough to maintain realistic head-tracking.

I mean, there is some hope for less-realistic titles, those which require less GPU power. Can't say for certain, but some I've played like Accounting, VR The Diner Duo, and Quell 4D seem less graphics-intensive. Audioshield might even be able to keep up.

That CPU might also be an i7, but I believe Intel is up to 7th-generation now, so that's 7 different i7s that yours could be... the 1st-gen i7 can't even dream of running VR, for example - just not enough horsepower to run the head/controller tracking along side a game which might already be stressing it alone.

But, that said, there's no real harm in buying one and finding out... the eBay used market is RED hot right now, and if it doesn't work, you can probably just turn it around and sell it nearly 1:1 ;)