Half-Life: Alyx precipitates 1 million VR HMD boost in 1 month

[DanceswithUnix]

People with specs like those you've mentioned, just about able to cope with VR, almost certainly aren't the people who have the spare money for a VR headset.

Apologies if I said that badly, but that was entirely backwards from my point. Anyone who can even vaguely afford a VR headset *already* has a PC capable of driving it.

VR has a reputation of needing a really high end PC, but the minimum requirements of a lot of modern AAA games has gone up, and the overhead for VR has stayed the same. If you have a 1060 6GB and a quad core, you can play, you just need to buy the headset. That's a pretty common setup, ignoring the fact that one of Nvidia's most sold GPUs of all time is the 1080ti. They sold those GPUs by the truckload at twice the price of a Rift.

There are lots of people that don't have any spare cash right now, I get that. There are some people who simply cannot use a VR headset as their eyes/head aren't compatible. What I don't get is the people who (slight exaggeration) basically say "I'm not paying £1000 for a headset when my i7 + 2080 won't be up to it and there are only two VR games available."

[AnotherDave]

Apologies if I said that badly, but that was entirely backwards from my point. Anyone who can even vaguely afford a VR headset *already* has a PC capable of driving it.

Gotcha. But still, one look a recommended specs will have most with a PC just about capable doing a 180 on the idea. In my experience people think the money spent on VR would be better used to up the overall gaming capability of a computer.

VR has a reputation of needing a really high end PC, but the minimum requirements of a lot of modern AAA games has gone up, and the overhead for VR has stayed the same. If you have a 1060 6GB and a quad core, you can play, you just need to buy the headset. That's a pretty common setup, ignoring the fact that one of Nvidia's most sold GPUs of all time is the 1080ti. They sold those GPUs by the truckload at twice the price of a Rift.

"Truckloads" by the standard of high end computer hardware, which is still a tiny fraction overall. While far from a perfect representation, take a look at the Steam survey numbers. A GPU will very likely be the single most expensive component of a gaming PC and one that is almost certainly seen as essential to anybody building a PC - no matter its actual cost to some extent. Even at half the price a VR headset would probably be the second most expensive bit of hardware, yet it isn't essential so the outlay will seem far less justifiable than spending more on a GPU. That only gets worse as you move below 1080Ti prices and closer to headset prices. The value just isn't there.

There are lots of people that don't have any spare cash right now, I get that. There are some people who simply cannot use a VR headset as their eyes/head aren't compatible. What I don't get is the people who (slight exaggeration) basically say "I'm not paying £1000 for a headset when my i7 + 2080 won't be up to it and there are only two VR games available."

Yes, there will be some ruling out VR when they don't need to, whether through misinformation, stubbornness or anything else. We're talking tiny group within tiny group within tiny group again though. Such a small number to be insignificant. The average gamer is running hardware that is nowhere near high end, not even up to current mid-range. 1080p monitors and below, sub-4GB VRAM, laptops etc. is the norm.

[DanceswithUnix]

"Truckloads" by the standard of high end computer hardware, which is still a tiny fraction overall.

No, I mean truckloads in absolute terms. We are talking shocking quantities of cards, enough 1080ti shipments to sustain a company just on that one product. One example, Gamer's Nexus tracked sales through their affiliate links when the RTX cards were released to see how their viewers bought cards. This is a YouTube channel for gamers interested in buying gaming hardware, so a skewed selection bias for sure but the results aren't exactly vague. This is percentage of several hundred cards sold releasing the pent up demand from people holding off buying a card before the release:




I've said before in this thread you have to be so careful picking things out of the Steam survey; you can get trends from it but actual numbers is hard. Just look at the screen resolutions, those are dominated by low end laptops with low res screens and integrated graphics. I've been guilty of that, my 720p laptop got scanned by Steam because I wanted to play Plants vs Zombies on it which is about the only thing in my collection that it will play

My desktop and the family VR machine were included in this survey, and the headset is on one of them so my personal contribution is to push the numbers towards 50%. I'm a fan of VR, but I'm not loaded enough to go buying a headset for every computer in the house. It's a peripheral, and like the steering wheel and the flight stick they get shared around as people want to play a game that uses them. But it does get used, currently every single day of the week, sometimes there is a queue for it.

[spacein_vader]

While the Steam Survey definitely skews casual I'd argue it's less skewed and with a much larger dataset than GNs affiliate sales.

[AnotherDave]

No, I mean truckloads in absolute terms. We are talking shocking quantities of cards, enough 1080ti shipments to sustain a company just on that one product. One example, Gamer's Nexus tracked sales through their affiliate links when the RTX cards were released to see how their viewers bought cards. This is a YouTube channel for gamers interested in buying gaming hardware, so a skewed selection bias for sure but the results aren't exactly vague. This is percentage of several hundred cards sold releasing the pent up demand from people holding off buying a card before the release:

That's really not data you can draw any conclusions from. It's wildly skewed towards people who are more likely to buy higher end hardware as that's a significant part of what the channel covers. I don't rate the Steam survey as particularly accurate but it's the best example there is of current active hardware and so has to accepted as broadly credible. If there are that many 1080Ti's out there then why are they being beaten by just shy of 15% by 1060's which lag over 62% behind in GN's graph? Neither are completely accurate of course, but one has a far greater chance of being closer to accurate.

I've said before in this thread you have to be so careful picking things out of the Steam survey; you can get trends from it but actual numbers is hard. Just look at the screen resolutions, those are dominated by low end laptops with low res screens and integrated graphics. I've been guilty of that, my 720p laptop got scanned by Steam because I wanted to play Plants vs Zombies on it which is about the only thing in my collection that it will play

Dominated by low end laptops (and low end PCs in general) because that's what most people are using. Your 720p laptop is representative of the gaming hardware of far more people than a 1080Ti is.

My desktop and the family VR machine were included in this survey, and the headset is on one of them so my personal contribution is to push the numbers towards 50%. I'm a fan of VR, but I'm not loaded enough to go buying a headset for every computer in the house. It's a peripheral, and like the steering wheel and the flight stick they get shared around as people want to play a game that uses them. But it does get used, currently every single day of the week, sometimes there is a queue for it.

Hah, I should hope so! If you spend that much money on a peripheral it had better get some regular use . The steering wheel and flight stick are interesting comparisons too as they are both niche items similar to VR headsets. Head tracking can probably be added into the mix as well. The vast majority of gamers don't own any of these.

I have a VR headset and a steering wheel because they compliment the kind of games I enjoy and I'm in the fortunate enough position to be able to afford them. That can either be taken as another person you've heard of who has a VR headset, or as the likely outcome of being on a tech forum and in a thread specifically about VR. In reality neither of us are anywhere remotely close to being representative of anything but a tiny fraction of gamers.

[DanceswithUnix]

In reality neither of us are anywhere remotely close to being representative of anything but a tiny fraction of gamers.

I must move in odd circles. I generally consider my rig as underpowered compared to most people I come across. Unless I'm playing WoW, plenty on there with basic laptops.

My wife was in a video meeting with one of her software teams, and it seems they were *all* talking about how good Alyx is. Thankfully, though she has yet to play the game, she had tried on the headset while I was playing it and has played the earlier games so wasn't left out. So the whole team had VR headsets, what's the odds eh?

Edit: You might find the Amazon best selling GPU list interesting as well. Couple of GT710 cards in there, I presume those are going into cheap server/office machines as you can't really game on those (or at least that's what I buy them for). Otherwise, you have to go a long way down to get to the 1050/1030 cards that are for gaming but aren't VR capable.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsell...ers/430500031/

[AnotherDave]

I must move in odd circles. I generally consider my rig as underpowered compared to most people I come across. Unless I'm playing WoW, plenty on there with basic laptops.

My wife was in a video meeting with one of her software teams, and it seems they were *all* talking about how good Alyx is. Thankfully, though she has yet to play the game, she had tried on the headset while I was playing it and has played the earlier games so wasn't left out. So the whole team had VR headsets, what's the odds eh?

Odds that group of what I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) are well paid people who spend a lot of time together would have similar interests and buy similar products? They'd be pretty good. That actually plays to a point I was going to make before that the lack of perceived value for the price leads to a low adoption rate and avoids most of the "my mate's got one so I need one too" that can come with this kind of thing when it takes off. If VR can't catch fire on PlayStation it doesn't stand a chance on PC, at least as things currently stand.

Edit: You might find the Amazon best selling GPU list interesting as well. Couple of GT710 cards in there, I presume those are going into cheap server/office machines as you can't really game on those (or at least that's what I buy them for). Otherwise, you have to go a long way down to get to the 1050/1030 cards that are for gaming but aren't VR capable.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsell...ers/430500031/

The point isn't really that x amount of people have a computer capable of running VR, it's that the majority aren't even interested beyond thinking it looks cool, if at all. And if they were, it's still another major investment in a very limited use item on top of whatever they already spent on their PC.

[DanceswithUnix]

If VR can't catch fire on PlayStation it doesn't stand a chance on PC, at least as things currently stand.

It was actually someone where I worked with a Playstation that kicked it off for me.

He found a PSVR set in CeX for a decent price and took a punt. He was so impressed with it he brought it into the office for us to have a go. A lot of headsets go bought soon after that.

Not sure what it was I was playing on the PS4, I gather it wasn't even a game it was some demo level included in a Star Wars game?

[AnotherDave]

He found a PSVR set in CeX for a decent price and took a punt. He was so impressed with it he brought it into the office for us to have a go. A lot of headsets go bought soon after that.

That's how these things spread. With VR more than anything else you need to experience it for yourself. It's far harder for it to appeal to somebody by seeing an advert or watching videos online or whatever because it's impossible to know how it feels.

Your friend saw value in a second hand PSVR, bought it and shared it with a group of people for whom VR was affordable. None of that is true for the majority of gamers.

[DanceswithUnix]

Your friend saw value in a second hand PSVR, bought it and shared it with a group of people for whom VR was affordable. None of that is true for the majority of gamers.

This does feel rather like when all those years ago I bought a 3DFX VooDoo card. I read a few reviews saying how amazing it was, but had no way of seeing one. I was single in those days, but it was still a pretty crazy purchase. People who saw what my 3D graphics card could do were amazed, but figured £80 for something that was only usable in a few games was daft and you were better off buying a bigger Pentium to improve your software rendering across the board