Discussion Need to play Half Life Alyx.

[kingoftown]

My current spec:AMD Ryzen5 2400g, 32 gb ram, MSI B450m PRO-2M, along with Corsair 550W PSU. I noticed that Radeon RX 580 is the minimum requirement for the game. I can get this card, but it's a card of 2018. I was hoping I could get a card in the same price range but a more recent card if possible.

Also, given the specs and the game, and particular VR set which would be best suitable for the same?

 

[Order 66]

3060 12gb for $302

Amazon.com

 

[SyCoREAPER]

3060 12gb for $302

Amazon.com

Will also need a new PSU. They are right at the edge at 550w with absolutely no overhead.

Also CPU will probably bottleneck.

 

[kingoftown]

Will also need a new PSU. They are right at the edge at 550w with absolutely no overhead.

Also CPU will probably bottleneck.

But the cpu qualities as per the requirements. As for the graphics card, if 3060 is a big card, then any other one?

 

[Flame1]

A 3060 is really the minimum that I'd personally be looking at, though this will HEAVILY depend on the resolution of the VR headset that you would go for, a Pimax, G2, Vive Pro 2 will seriously struggle to maintain a 90 with a 3060 unless you drop the resolution to below 100% which would make the image quality really horrible.

AMD cards could be an option too, however even now I see reports of them having issues with running VR smoothly, so just to be safe I would just stick to NVIDIA for VR.

Now as for the VR headset, Half Life Alyx is best experienced with the valve Index controllers. You could buy the whole Index kit if you can spare the money to do so, but you could also just buy the base stations and controllers separately, and then get something like a Quest 2 for the headset. Just remember that setting up an inside-out tracking headset like the Quest 2 or G2 Reverb with base station tracked controllers like the Valve knuckles can be really scuffed, and I would always recommend hardware that is natively made to work with each other.

I have no idea what your budget would allow for, but here are my VR hardware recommendations for Half Life Alyx:

Cheapest, will probably cause the most issues:

-Meta Quest 2 /w Link Cable
-2x 2.0 Base stations (Cheapest available are sold directly on steam)
-Valve Index Controllers

Most convenient but more expensive:

-Valve Index VR Kit (Will come with everything you need when it comes to VR hardware)

Worth taking a look at if you don't mind the used market:

-Vive Pro 1 (Depending on the kit, this may or may not include base stations, I recommend against settling on the Vive Wand controllers)
-2x 2.0 Base stations
-Valve Index Controllers

As for you actual PC hardware, I'd recommend:

-RTX 3060 or better (Preferably stick to NVIDIA)
-Just to be safe, a better power supply with a bit of overhead, I'd probably be looking at 750w+
Use this to help guide your choice: https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/
- A Ryzen 5 5600, it would help performance in general and it's amazingly priced right now, but beware that you would probably need a BIOS update.