Why Is It so Difficult to Benchmark Your PC for VR Capabilities
If you want to get into the hype around virtual reality, you’ll need to build a fairly powerful computer that can handle that kind of stress . However, assessing how well a graphics card can handle virtual reality is much more difficult than you might think.
As explained in this video from Linus Tech Tips, virtual reality is a unique challenge for testing graphics cards. To create a VR experience that doesn’t make people nauseous, VR games always have vertical sync enabled, which means the entire frame must load before the screen refreshes, and most headsets are capped at 90Hz.
VR games also often use variable graphics settings throughout gameplay to maintain frame rates at 90Hz. Some parts of the game can show up in Ultra settings, but can sometimes drop to medium. The smoothness of the video often matters more than the accuracy of the graphics themselves. At least if you want to avoid motion sickness.
Unfortunately, there is no good way to test graphics cards under these conditions yet. A lot of companies are working on methods, but for now you need to keep track of which graphics card model performs well in real setups in order to tell which one to buy. Don’t buy a card just because it can run the latest Ultra games.
What’s up with VR testing? | Linus’ technical advice