A Budget VR Option? Testing AMD's Ryzen 5 2400G With Windows Mixed Reality

[kcarbotte]

AMD's "Raven Ridge" Ryzen 5 2400G delivers impressive traditional gaming performance, but can it handle Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality VR platform? The short answer is yes--but with caveats.

A Budget VR Option? Testing AMD's Ryzen 5 2400G With Windows Mixed Reality : Read more

 

[dudmont]

Did you do any overclocking or tweaking of the memory on the systems? IIRC, raven ridge really benefits from both. Would it benefit enough to make any serious difference in feel or allow you to run slightly higher graphical detail settings? I know not everyone spends hours fine tuning, but AMD chips beg it.

 

[Heliosurge]

Awesome Review! I agree completely. If AMD continues on this path with apu improvements will definitely help to propel vr into the mainstream. Definitely look forward to seeing their future line up & how it compares.

 

[kcarbotte]

Did you do any overclocking or tweaking of the memory on the systems? IIRC, raven ridge really benefits from both. Would it benefit enough to make any serious difference in feel or allow you to run slightly higher graphical detail settings? I know not everyone spends hours fine tuning, but AMD chips beg it.

I did not do any overclocking for this article. Mostly due to time constraints -- I only had two weeks with the CPU before it had to go back.
I also didn't spend any time trying to tweak the memory beyond 2933MHz because the memory that I have is from before Ryzen chips hit the market and it doesn't like to run at 3200MHz on my X370 boards.

That said, I don't think you would get enough of a gain from a modest overclock to make much of a difference.
30 FPS really isn't good enough for VR games. You can get by with it if you have strong VR legs, but its not something I would recommend trying.

This article is really just an experiment to set the tone of the current state of affairs. Wait a year or two and we'll probably be having a completely different discussion.

 

[Plumboby]

Give AMD a few months drivers will get better they are doing drivers atm to suit the Apu as we speak as driver wise is lucky dip. THink about it new tech new aritecture new bugs new problems to iron out give them a few moths to iron out the kinks & markets to stabilise a bit & I suggest that With the Ryzen 2s coming out they probly going do a mass driver Bios, motherboard hit out to suit any issues. I know off hand that they are currently beefing up the drivers with odd glitches that have filtered threw being a new Apu.

 

[ZRace]

Great little review, I didn't expect the APU to drive such high resolutions in VR that well.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Imagine if AMD put together a custom APU with 20 CU's.... That would make for almost (I think) a near 60fps experience. That would be a VERY usable VR chip.

 

[kcarbotte]

Great little review, I didn't expect the APU to drive such high resolutions in VR that well.

Haha, thanks!
Nor did I!

 

[nate1492]

How low are your standards for passable VR? How does 20-30 FPS in *FRUIT NINJA* get anything but laughed out the building?

Do you want to get sick while playing VR? This is how you get sick playing VR.

To be clear. If you bought this CPU and a VR headset, there is a *very strong chance you would be ill while playing this*.

This review barely touches on this fact. It's hard enough to not feel ill below 60 or 90 FPS, but 20-30 with high frame latency will feel awful.

 

[Nino LS]

Did you skip over the section where native WMR titles ran excellent? "It managed to run Halo Recruit with ease." They did not recommend this chip for SteamVR, where all the lower frame rates you cite happened. The point is an APU is running modern VR and running it well in it's native ecosystem - this is great news for all VR users .....and those that don't even know they will be using it yet.

 

[kcarbotte]

How low are your standards for passable VR? How does 20-30 FPS in *FRUIT NINJA* get anything but laughed out the building?

Do you want to get sick while playing VR? This is how you get sick playing VR.

To be clear. If you bought this CPU and a VR headset, there is a *very strong chance you would be ill while playing this*.

This review barely touches on this fact. It's hard enough to not feel ill below 60 or 90 FPS, but 20-30 with high frame latency will feel awful.

I didn't at any point recommend using an APU for Steam VR. I clearly stated we used those games for benchmarks because you can't run FCAT VR in the Windows MR environment.
30 fps is not passable VR, but it exceeded my expectations.

 

[nate1492]

I didn't at any point recommend using an APU for Steam VR. I clearly stated we used those games for benchmarks because you can't run FCAT VR in the Windows MR environment.
30 fps is not passable VR, but it exceeded my expectations.

Not passable and 'exceeded my expectations' are basically not possible.

How low were your expectations? It doesn't catch on fire and explode?

Could you really suggest someone dip in and buy a $250 VR headset for the lowest end of VR? I just don't even get the allure here.

An article browser could totally misread the conclusion. You don't seem to flat out say 'This does not work for VR gaming'.

@We never expected it to deliver a passable gaming experience in any way, and we had little hope of using it for VR video playback.

This is basically you saying 'it works for VR' games' and can totally be taken that way, especially combined with the caveats about 'casual gaming'.

 

[ZRace]

snip

People perceive things differently. In calm games where the character doesn't run around much, I can play with 45 fps & reprojection just fine, no sickness whatsoever.

The review basically states that it never expected a RX 550 level integrated graphics unit to able able to push VR applications at the highest available resolution anywhere near bearable. And the results show that basic applications and very lightweight games that don't need Steam VR can actually be enjoyable.
And that is surprising, at least to me. I'd have expected something like 15 fps at best at such a resolution

 

[kcarbotte]

I didn't at any point recommend using an APU for Steam VR. I clearly stated we used those games for benchmarks because you can't run FCAT VR in the Windows MR environment.
30 fps is not passable VR, but it exceeded my expectations.

Not passable and 'exceeded my expectations' are basically not possible.

How low were your expectations? It doesn't catch on fire and explode?

Could you really suggest someone dip in and buy a $250 VR headset for the lowest end of VR? I just don't even get the allure here.

An article browser could totally misread the conclusion. You don't seem to flat out say 'This does not work for VR gaming'.

@We never expected it to deliver a passable gaming experience in any way, and we had little hope of using it for VR video playback.

This is basically you saying 'it works for VR' games' and can totally be taken that way, especially combined with the caveats about 'casual gaming'.

Did you read the whole article, or just the conclusion? You're right, I'm not willing to say "This does not work for VR gaming," because the evidence doesn't support that conclusion.

Every native Windows MR experience that I tried, including games that have much higher system requirements, worked fine.
Steam VR content did not.

If you want a basic VR setup for productivity work and light gaming, you can get away with this setup.