Notebook for VR

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hi Guys,

We are working with virtual sets in unreal, and would like to have a HTC Vive so the director can see the whole Set before the shooting. Any advice on notebooks for this?
The idea is being able to open a heavy shaded scene and just move arround. The budget is around $2000

Thanks very much!
Nacho

2

– Moved the thread to General Discussion section –

3

If it is a really heavy 3D scene, it is possible that no current hardware can render it well in VR. Using a laptop, the risk is of course bigger.

Your best bet is a laptop with the most powerful mobile GPU available, GTX 1080, but they are usually well over $2000. Example:

For under $2000 you have to step down to the still very capable GTX 1070. Example:

Another option (that I have personal experience with) is to buy/build a compact desktop computer with a small portable display. Adding the Vive the setup will still not be easily portable. You can make a great compact build under $2000.

Do you have any experience doing VR? It is easy to adapt a scene for VR, but it can be tricky to do it well. Also, scaling down the graphics to fit VR is not as easy as for a less powerful normal computer.

4

I would go with the ITX desktop setup instead of a laptop that exceeds your budget.
This video is a comparison between a gaming laptop vs a custom itx pc that might make you consider building something good with your budget:

5

Great guys! Never thought at this solution! Maybe I´ll split it into 2: A 15" notebook with a nvidia 1070 for lighter use to work while on the plane, hotel, etc… and one ITX for the set and showing VR to the director.
Any brand or model recommended for a 15" with a nvidia 1070?

Thanks again for this great idea!
Nacho

6

Finally we are using a desktop computer for previz, with a 1080 Ti, 2 SSD in raid 1, and tons of amazing stuff in it, and bought a Asus ROG with a Geforce 1070, as an assistant which came with a faulty graphics card out of the box. Living in southamerica it took lot of time and money to send it back. Now the refund was done we need to buy a new one. After checking in amazon all the gaming laptops have 10% to 20% of 1 Star Reviews based on systems not working right out of the box, or on the first weeks or months.
Having the Desktop I´d rather buy a more stable laptop than a unsteable beast, any recommendations?

Thanks in advanced!
Nacho

8

Yeap Faulty graphics card or bad connection, the screen was full of artifacts jumping arround all the time, except where the mouse cursor was, and if I restarted it I had a black screen (no BIOS splash screen) until windows start with artifacts again. Tried updating windows, it didn’t work, tried factory resetting didn´t work and took it back to US myself again last week (had to go for another reason) Didn´t want to open it because I would lose warranty. Now I´m back to where I started, but more convinced I´ll rather have a stable machine to prepare everything and then use the Desktop computer for the stress moment.

9

I got a Razer Blade which works very well for doing mobile VR demos, the only issue I had was that it wasn’t good at assigning the Nvidia GPU to intensive applications so I had to set it to use the Nvidia GPU always which isn’t always efficient but the best way to guarantee it’s being used when needed.

10

Finally after ROG I bought a Alienware 17 R4, which ac adapter died the first time I used it with HTC Vive and Unreal for a whole day. Being out of US the Ac Adapter is out of warranty, so I had to buy a new one. The computer looks solid and works smoothly, but I’m quite upset about the ac adapter working for a couple of weeks only.

Cheers!

11

Oh, cool. Thanks for that!