FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality

[cangelini]

Hot on the heels of Futuremark's synthetic VRMark suite, we now have a test tool that lets us evaluate graphics and host processing performance using real-world games. Follow along as we introduce Nvidia's FCAT VR Capture and Analyzer packages.

FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality : Read more

 

[ingtar33]

no ryzen? just an 8320?

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

A really nice article and a great introduction to FCAT VR. Thanks Chris!

Obvious request that probably everyone will ask of you: please include Ryzen in your tests once you have a sane moment after the hectic launch period.

Now that that's out the way, I can get to my actual question: I would like to know if "Game A" is available on both the Rift and the Vive, would FCAT VR be able to tell you what, if anything, the performance difference is given the same computer hardware please?

Please can you also include multi-GPU setups. They can definitely help, depending on the title, e.g.
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/11/30/serious_sam_vr_mgpu_nvidia_gtx_pascal_follow_up/5
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/10/24/serious_sam_vr_mgpu_amd_rx_480_follow_up/

I found this statement to be very interesting: "it’s possible to illustrate that 11ms isn’t an absolute threshold for rendering new frames at 90 Hz."

Thank you
Andrew

 

[cangelini]

Hi guys,

Ryzen wasn't in my lab yet when this was written, but I do have plans there

Andrew, yes, FCAT VR should allow us to test the same title on two different HMDs and compare their performance.

Multi-GPU is a plan as well, particularly once games begin incorporating better support for it (right now, that's a bit of a problem).

 

[WhyAreYou]

Thanks, looks good!

 

[playingwithplato]

Do FCAT VR's measurement algorithms tend to favor NVDIA chipsets? Curious, wonder if AMD will release a similar testing tool to measure buffer store/retrieval and render speed <11ms? Would like to see that applied to en environment with their GPUs.

 

[ffrgtm]

Fantastic article! I would love to see results with a secondary GPU (non-SLi) dedicated to physics and compare that to the cpu swap tests in AZ Sunshine you've just shown us.

 

[ffrgtm]

Do FCAT VR's measurement algorithms tend to favor NVDIA chipsets? Curious, wonder if AMD will release a similar testing tool to measure buffer store/retrieval and render speed <11ms? Would like to see that applied to en environment with their GPUs.

A quote from another article on FCAT:

"While the FCAT VR tool is developed by Nvidia, the company insists it is headset and GPU agnostic, and meant only to capture data. The tool itself doesn’t contain a benchmark; according to the company, the tool logs information directly from the VR runtime."

I'm inclined to believe Nvidia's claim of brand blindness right now... but if AMD ever manages to put forth some real competition then I don't think we could be blamed for becoming more skeptical. It's hard to forget just how far Nvidia and AMD have gone to skew results in the past.

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

Andrew, yes, FCAT VR should allow us to test the same title on two different HMDs and compare their performance.

Multi-GPU is a plan as well, particularly once games begin incorporating better support for it (right now, that's a bit of a problem).

Thank you.


One thing that I might've missed in the article: Has Nvidia open-sourced FCAT and FCAT VR so that everyone can see the code, check it for unbiasedness (is that even a word? and help contribute to the program to make it even better?

 

[cangelini]

Yup, check it out: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/fcat-vr-download-and-how-to-guide

There's a download link in there. I'd be curious to hear from any TH readers who want to mess with it as well!

 

[thinkspeak]

Any chance of doing this again but with stock and OC on the maxwell, pascal and AMD cards? The 980 ti really opens up and they generally overclock well, in some cases exceeding the 1070 which would be useful for those debating an upgrading for VR

 

[mitch074]

I guess my o/c'ed 4670k and reference RX480 should be able to handle this correctly, then... Now, if headset prices could go down!