How well does VR perform on different laptops,
and what do you need to get set up?
I’ve got the VIVE Cosmos Elite from HTC
and we’ll go through what’s needed to
play VR on a laptop and also see how games
perform with different laptop specs.
First let’s get an idea of what the Cosmos
Elite comes with, as this will be useful in
understanding what your laptop requires.
There’s a lot inside the box, including
the headset, two base stations, two controllers,
five power adapters, and the cables to connect
to your PC.
Two of the power adapters are used to charge
the controllers over micro USB, so there’s
one for each.
The other three power adapters are for the
headset and two base stations.
The base stations get set up diagonally over
the play area, and they have threaded mounts
on them which attach to standard mounting
solutions like tripods, I’ve got mine attached
to some light stands.
There are wall mounts included if you want
to permanently mount the base stations to
the wall though.
The headset has a single cable coming out
of it, and this connects into the included
adapter.
The adapter has a full size DisplayPort and
USB 3 Type-A cable which you connect to your
PC, or in this case, our laptop.
The adapter also connects to one of the power
adapters, which is how the headset gets powered
through the single cable.
Full size DisplayPort on laptops is much more
rare compared to desktop graphics cards though,
however there’s a DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort
adapter included in the box, which works well
for laptops as mini DisplayPort is far more
common.
Lately, DisplayPort over Type-C seems to be
becoming much more common with the majority
of laptops these days, unfortunately there
was no type-c adapter included in the box,
however I bought a cheap Type-C to mini DisplayPort
adapter from the Internet.
Unfortunately it didn’t work with the MSI
P65, as its Type-C port isn’t wired directly
to the Nvidia graphics, so I get an error
saying to connect the headset to a port that
connects to the Nvidia GPU, and this is why
I’ve started noting this in my laptop reviews.
You can check this in the Nvidia control panel,
here we can see the Type-C connection goes
to the Intel graphics.
I did the majority of my testing using the
MSI P65, as it’s got a mini DisplayPort
and fair specs, but we’ll test some lower
powered laptops too.
Once it’s all plugged in the setup process
was quite easy, the Vive software walks you
through the basics very well.
I played some half life alyx for my first
VR experience, and apart from the fact that
VR takes gaming to a whole new level, the
RTX 2070 Max-Q in the P65 had zero issues
running the game at maximum settings.
This isn’t really going to be a review of
the VIVE cosmos elite given it’s my first
VR experience at home, so I’ve got nothing
to compare it with, but yeah I will say once
it was all set up it was definitely fun getting
into the available VR games.
At the moment when you buy the Cosmos slite
it comes with a 6 month subscription to VIVEPORT,
which has about 900 available VR games for
you to play.
Anyway let’s get into some benchmarks, I’ve
only been able to test the laptops that I’ve
currently got on hand at the moment, but let
me know in the comments if you want to see
VR testing added into future laptop reviews,
and if so, what tests or games as I’m still
learning the ways of VR.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the Cosmos
Elite headset has a total resolution of 2880
by 1700 pixels with a 90Hz refresh rate, so
other options with smaller resolutions may
be easier to maintain higher FPS with lower
tier hardware.
In terms of the minimum required specs, this
is what we’re looking at.
I’d expect most modern laptop processors
to be ok based on this, but we’ll test some
different options soon.
The GPU will likely matter more given our
high resolution.
It’s worth noting that these are desktop
graphics cards listed here, the laptop counterparts
are notably behind in power limits and thereby
performance.
Given the 1660 Ti in a laptop is around a
1660 desktop, I’d think a 1660 Ti laptop
should be ok for VR.
We’ll start off by looking at the OpenVR
benchmark results.
I’m still learning VR testing, but it seems
like a tool such as this is going to be the
best way to compare data fairly.
Unlike a traditional game, VR introduces more
variance between test runs.
When you’re trying to collect data and perform
the same test pass, things like where you’re
standing in the world, how you move and even
subtle head movements are all picked up and
affect results.
Even if I’m able to get the same test run
locked in run to run, it’s not really something
someone else can compare against, so I haven’t
measured frame rate in games.
With that said, I did have some inconsistencies
when running the OpenVR benchmark test multiple
times, so I’m not sure how accurate it will
be for comparison, but these are the numbers
I got with three different laptops and results
are averaged over three runs.
Now the way this benchmark outputs FPS does
not represent what FPS you actually get playing
games, basically ignore the numbers in terms
of being anything useful and only use them
for comparison instead, just consider them
as benchmark scores rather than frame rates.
For some more real world anecdotal experience,
I had no issues playing half life alyx at
max settings on the P65 or the Y530 with GTX
1060, however the 5500M in the Alpha 15 didn’t
go well for me.
Even if I used minimum settings it would lag,
sometimes it was fine and playable, the lag
would come and go, but overall it wasn’t
offering a good experience, and the OpenVR
benchmark did put it in last place out of
these machines.
Games could also be hard to test because they
might cap out at 90 FPS, matching the 90Hz
refresh rate of the headset.
I’d love it if you guys could let me know
how you want to see VR tested in future laptop
reviews, please let me know.
I like that OpenVR benchmark actually requires
a headset to run unlike other tools, it’s
not perfect, but testing actual games seems
to have it’s own challenges too.
I can of course play them and tell you how
I thought it ran, but I’d prefer to get
hard numbers, but as mentioned that’s going
to be hard to do accurately.
The Vive cosmos elite with it’s higher headset
resolution should also make it good for testing
with.
Again I haven’t tested other headsets, but
in Half life alyx I thought it looked great.
In terms of price though, it’s on the higher
end of the spectrum at $900 USD for my friends
overseas, or $1700 AUD here in Australia.
Given I haven’t had a chance to test lower
end options out, it’s really difficult for
me to say how well the Cosmos elite stacks
up, but again this is not a review, just a
first look at VR and how I might be able to
incorporate testing into future videos.
Anyway let me know in the comments if you
want to see VR testing added to future laptop
reviews, and if so let me know any suggestions
you’ve got for VR testing so that I can
improve this, and of course if you’re new
to the channel then get subscribed for future
tech videos like this one.
