Before you drop $799 on the HTC Vive virtual reality headset next Monday, when pre-orders open at 10am ET, you can now check if spending all that money is worthwhile. To coincide with the unveiling of the consumer edition of the Vive headset, HTC"s partner Valve have released the Steam VR Performance Test.
Going through a non-interactive GLaDOS robot testing facility, the two minute diagnostic determines whether your PC can run virtual reality content at 90 fps and at recommended settings; however, the test does have some limitations. It is unable to assess added CPU loads by positional tracking and processing-intense VR applications.
The recommended requirements for the Steam VR test are marginally less than those for the Oculus Rift"s. The difference being only 4GB RAM instead of 8GB. The SteamVR Performance Test is a 2GB download with recommended requirements of:
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10
Processor: Intel® i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970 / AMD Radeon™ R9 290 equivalent or greater
4.8GB hard drive space
The HTC Vive is expected to ship early April. Pre-orders for the Oculus Rift have been open since early January, and are now expected to ship in July.
Source: Steam via Ars Technica