When it comes to 1080p and 1440p gaming the 6700XT
is a fantastic GPU as is evidenced by about a bazillion different videos here on YouTube.
But what about VR? Is the 6700XT enough GPU for someone who's looking to play games in VR?
To answer this question I tested the 6700XT
with 8 different VR games. In my test system I paired the 6700XT with a Ryzen 7
5800X CPU and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz CL16 RAM and here's how it did...
The first game we're taking a look at is what I feel is the most popular VR game ever!
Beat Saber. And the 6700XT had no problem running this game whatsoever. I set the render resolution
to 4704 X 2384 in the Oculus app and the refresh rate to 120Hz. In the game settings I turned off
Anti-Aliasing because I don't like how it makes things look a little blurry,
not to mention it also impacts GPU performance quite a bit;
I set the Rendering Scale in the game to 1.5 and as you can see we were able to maintain a
consistent 120fps at all times with plenty of performance headroom to spare. This isn't all
that surprising of course because Beat Saber isn't all that complex of a game. With these
settings though Beat Saber ran silky smooth and looked astonishingly sharp and crispy.
Next up on our list is Vader Immortal. For this game I left the Render Resolution at
4704 X 2384 but turned the refresh rate of my Quest 2 down to 90Hz. Vader Immortal only has
two settings for graphical quality, Low and High so I set it to High and let it
rip. While this game is a little more demanding than Beat Saber the 6700XT
still had no problem maintaining 90fps with plenty of performance headroom still available.
Just like with Beat Saber, Vader Immortal felt nice and smooth and looked amazing.
Third on our list is my personal favorite VR shooter, Contractors.
Once again Render Resolution was set to 4704 X 2384 and the refresh rate to
90Hz. All the graphics quality settings in game were set to Ultra and much like
Vader Immortal we got a solid 90fps and plenty of performance headroom to spare.
I was able to run Contractors at 120Hz as well and game play was nice and smooth but
I had to set Anti-Aliasing to Low and all the other graphical quality
settings to High from Ultra to give us enough performance headroom to stay above 120fps.
My captures of this game at 120Hz came out really choppy though so just know this capture
is not indicative of the actual experience in the headset. While this capture is a bit choppy and
stuttery actual game play was smooth as you can see by the fps and performance headroom graphs.
One of my favorite games I've played this year is Red Matter 2. This game is visually stunning,
has an intriguing story and really great game play. If you're interested in learning more
about it check out my review video popping up in the cards right now.
The only graphical settings in this game you can mess with are the Render Scale
which I set to 1.2 and then Dynamic and Indirect Shadows which I both set to On.
Once again with the Render Resolution set to 4704 X 2384 and the refresh rate at 90Hz the 6700XT
gave us rock solid performance. There were times the Performance Headroom fluctuated a bit but
we were able to maintain 90fps at all times giving us a nice smooth immersive experience.
Even as a flat screen game Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is one of the most hardware
demanding games out there so my expectations going into testing this game in VR weren't very high.
At first I kept the Render Resolution at 4704 X 2384 and the Refresh Rate at 90Hz
and even with all the graphical settings at their lowest levels in the game I was
only getting between 25 and 30fps with the 6700XT; which was not a good experience.
To get a better and more or less consistent frame rate and keep the Performance Headroom above 0,
I had to keep all the game settings set at their lowest and turn the Render Resolution in
the Oculus app all the way down to 2432 X 1216 and set the Refresh Rate to 72Hz. The graphics in this
capture don't look half bad but in the headset things were much more pixelated and blurry than
I would like so while the 6700XT can run Flight Simulator in VR I personally wouldn't recommend
it, especially if Flight Simulator is the primary game you play and you're a graphics snob like me.
Assetto Corsa is another flat screen game that also added VR support after it initially
launched. Even though this game is now over 8 years old visually it's still a very good
looking game and the 6700XT was only just able to give us a nice playable VR experience.
Being the eye candy snob I am I set the Render Resolution to 4704 X 2384
but had to lower the Refresh Rate of the Quest 2 to 72Hz. With the games
Quality Settings maxed out you can see we were getting a constant 72fps with
about 20% performance headroom to spare. Personally I think VR is the ultimate way
to play driving games like this especially if you have a driving wheel and pedals.
Lone Echo 2 is an absolutely gorgeous game and a stellar follow up to the first Lone Echo.
As I did with all the other games I set the Render Resolution in the Oculus app to 4704 X
2384 but found I needed to set the Refresh Rate to 72Hz to keep the Performance Headroom just
barely above 0. The in game Resolution Scale was set to 100% and I used the Medium Quality Preset,
which still looks amazing by the way, and I also turned Anti-Aliasing Off
to free up some performance and keep the visuals looking sharp and crisp.
Normally I don't like pushing the Performance Headroom this close to the edge but as you can
see the 6700XT was able to deliver a very solid 72fps in this game with the settings
I used. Sure I could have decreased the Render Resolution to give us some additional headroom
but I love those crisp, sharp graphics and this game is an absolute visual stunner.
The final game in the lineup is what many have deemed to be the greatest
VR game to be produced thus far and I tend to agree with that assessment.
Half Life Alyx ticks all the boxes. Great story,
great game play and amazing visuals. Just like in my other tests Render Resolution was set to
4704 X 2384 and I used the High Fidelity preset in the games Performance settings.
Half Life Alyx looks absolutely amazing with these settings but as you can see
by the performance graphs I did have to set the headsets refresh rate to 72Hz when using
these settings and it didn't leave us much in the way of Performance Headroom. It typically
hovered between 10 and 20% but did dip below 0 for a bit from time to time like in this clip
where I'm shooting some head crab zombies which caused the frame rate to fall below
72fps for a few seconds but thanks to the magic of how the compositor works,
in the headset I didn't even notice the frame rate drop at all and the vast majority of the
time the 6700XT kept us at a very nice 72fps and game play both looked and felt great.
I should mention all the game play captures you see were recorded directly to the Quest
2 at 4K and I did all my testing via Air Link. Which if you'd like to know what my Air Link
set up is like and what settings I use you can click on this video here and I will show you.