Can a potato GPU like the GTX 1650 play VR games?
Well, the short answer to that question is yeeessss... but... the real question should
be, what kind of experience does the 1650 provide?
Let me show you what I mean.
Because it's both popular and a pretty easy game to run I first tried out Beat Saber which
ran great at 3936 x 1984 at 90Hz with the in game settings you see on screen now.
The game both looked and played great and I felt this was a pretty good result so I
moved on to another game, which is one of my favorite VR shooters, Contractors.
It too is a pretty easy game to run but things didn't go quite like I was expecting they
would after seeing what the GTX 1650 did in Beat Saber.
In Contractors there's a map called 'Parking Lot' that is one of the more detailed maps
in the game and there's one area in particular I've found that stresses GPU's more than any
other part in any other map in the game which is this area right here.
I played this map at the settings you're seeing on screen now for a good 10 minutes and I
felt satisfied I had the settings dialed in for this game.
I then switched over to another map called 'Downtown' and at first things were going
along nicely but after playing for a couple minutes the frame rate dropped out and things
got really choppy.
So I quit out of the match and cued it up again and this time the game ran great except
for when I ran through this store, the frame rate would drop down but once I was out the
other side the frame rate came right back.
At this point I figured the low frame rate I'd had in the previous game was just a random
glitch of some kind, so I played some games in half a dozen or so other maps and everything
was great, so I switched to the next game I wanted to test.
Vader Immortal is another game that is pretty easy to run and the 1650 ran it ok at 3936
x 1984 at 72Hz.
There were times the performance headroom got a bit too low at these settings and the
frame rate would drop in half for awhile, but even though the frame rate was low the
compositor wasn't dropping any frames so my frame times were consistent and the game still
felt smooth.
Being a slower paced game I felt like this wasn't a big deal because it wasn't jarring
or vomit or headache inducing and the frame rate would eventually come back up so I then
moved on to the first of my games that are a little more difficult to run.
In Red Matter 2 I have two main areas in the game I use for identifying the settings I
want to use with a particular graphics card.
The first is this one with these rockets.
The lighting and reflections here really push a GPU and as you can see on the performance
headroom graph we're about maxing out the GTX 1650 with the settings I settled on.
The other area of the game I like to test in is this one where you're looking through
the glass into this control room and to really push the GPU to it's limits I activate the
laser of the scanning tool so it's reflection also has to be rendered on the glass.
Now Red Matter 2 like the previous 3 games has a Native Quest 2 version available for
it but using the settings I've laid out here the graphics are sharper.
Now does that mean the experience is better?
Not necessarily; the overall experience is more or less the same, but the graphics do
look better than the stand alone Quest versions.
For those of you wondering, I am using the Quest 2 for these tests and the PC I'm using
has a Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU and 32GB of 3600MHz CL16 DDR4 RAM all paired up with the PNY GeForce
GTX 1650.
The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners is another game that has a stand alone Quest 2 version
and even though I've never played the stand alone version personally, from looking at
videos and screen shots of the Quest 2 version I can say, even with everything set to Low
the 1650 delivered MUCH better looking visuals.
There were some areas where the 1650 definitely had to work a bit harder than others like
on the bus when looking at the map and then at the skiff you use to travel from place
to place but other than that there was plenty of performance headroom most of the time.
Another thing to note is the game stayed true to form and when engaging with a walker the
frame rate would drop in half for several seconds before returning back to 72fps.
I don't know why this happens.
From testing other GPU's I've found it's just something this game does.
No matter how powerful the GPU is, when fighting walkers the frame rate takes a dump.
(fart noise)
The compositor doesn't drop any frames at these times though so game play still feels
smooth overall.
While the PC versions of these games do look better than the stand alone Quest versions
it is certainly easier to just play the Quest version rather than having to mess around
with the resolution and other settings to get the game to run smoothly on the GTX 1650.
There are some games that are only available on PC though so let's now take a look at how
the 1650 handles those.
The one PC VR game I think everyone wants to play, and should play, because it's that
good; is Half Life Alyx.
Visually the game is stunning and game play wise it's almost a perfect 10.
The only thing I think I'd change is adding the ability to sprint rather than using the
jump mechanic.
Anyway, at first I tried running Half Life Alyx on the Low Fidelity preset at 3456 x
1744 and 72Hz.
Initially the 1650 was chuggin' along just fine.
That is until I walked in to this room.
As soon as I walked through the door the frame rate dropped in half and did not come back
to 72fps until I reached this health station a good ten minutes later and completed the
area.
The very next area I came to though took the frame rate right back down again and I knew
I needed to lower the resolution some more.
I lowered the resolution half a dozen or more times but this area just kept kicking the
1650's butt and it wasn't until I landed at 2463 x 1216 that the frame rate finally stayed
above 72fps in this area.
This left Half Life Alyx, which is a gorgeous game, looking pretty pixelated and blurry;
but it was playable.
Another really good PC VR and Oculus exclusive title is Lone Echo 2.
This game is even more demanding than Half Life Alyx so going into this test I didn't
have very high expectations.
I started off with everything set as low as it can go, and while the 1650 did technically
run the game and the frame rate was often above 36fps the compositor was very often
dropping frames making game play feel very choppy and resulted in me starting to get
a headache.
To be fair though, there were also times the frame rate dropped to 36fps and the compositor
did not drop any frames and since Lone Echo 2 is a slower paced game these moments were
tolerable.
Overall though performance was NOT good with the 1650 and I was happy to take the headset
off and move on to another game.
Because of how demanding Microsoft Flight Simulator is I thought about not even including
it in my testing at all, but my curiosity got the better of me and I fired it up just
to see how bad it was going to be.
With everything set about as low as they can go I cued up my favorite training flight to
test with and somewhat to my surprise the GTX 1650 was able to stay above 30fps.
The graphics were very pixelated and blurry looking which I don't find particularly enjoyable,
but Flight Simulator was running at a fairly consistent frame rate which I did not expect.
I then cued up a Discovery flight over New York City, fully expecting it to be a stuttering
mess and once again I was surprised by the performance I got.
It wasn't great but it was better than I was expecting.
With the frame rate in the mid to upper 20's and the graphics looking like something from
the PlayStation 1 it wasn't what I would call an ideal experience but the compositor was
not dropping frames so the frame times were consistent meaning game play felt smooth.
Well at least as smooth as 20 something fps can feel.
Even though the 1650 delivered better performance than I was expecting in Flight Simulator I
was still very happy to finish my testing on this game and take the headset off and
experience the smooth frame rate of real life once again.
The next game I tried was Assetto Corsa.
With all the in game settings set pretty much as low as they go the 1650 was able to maintain
a constant 72fps in this game at 3648 x 1856.
Despite the low settings the game still looks pretty decent in my opinion.
Looking at the Performance Headroom, we were pretty well maxing out the 1650 at these settings
but throughout all my benchmark runs the 1650 performed exactly the same each time and delivered
a solid 72fps.
The last game I tested was one that reminded me of the fact that the GTX 1650 only has
4GB of VRAM and made me think "well DUH!"
about things I had experienced in other games.
Pavlov is another shooter that is very popular and isn't particularly difficult to run so
I started out with the resolution at 3456 x 1984 at 90Hz and in the games graphics settings
under 'Textures' it says "High requires 6GB of video RAM".
Since the 1650 only has 4GB of VRAM I then set the Textures to Medium and started playing.
For the first 5 minutes or so, things were great, but all of a sudden the frame rate
dropped and things got kinda choppy.
To try and ease the load on the frame buffer a little more I lowered the resolution to
3648 x 1856 and that seemed to do the trick.
I was able to play through entire matches after that without the frame rate crapping
out on me again.
This experience in Pavlov then made me think back to similar things that had happened in
games like Contractors, Vader Immortal and The Walking Dead, where it had run fine for
awhile at a higher resolution but then after a few minutes the frame rate would crap out.
(fart noise)
Now I'm not 100% certain about this but my theory is; at those higher resolutions there
is more data that needs to be stored in the VRAM meaning the frame buffer would fill up
fairly quickly and once the buffer was full, it had to swap new data in and out, and it
would negatively impact the frame rate.
Lowering the resolution helped improve things in those games because with less data to store
the frame buffer didn't fill up as quickly.
This leads me to believe the 1650 could perform possibly better in some of those games IF
it had more VRAM.
Now circling back to my question at the beginning of the video...
what kind of experience does the 1650 provide?
Well it's a bit of a mixed bag.
In some games I feel the performance is acceptable but in others it really struggles.
Almost all the titles it did well with have native Quest 2 versions you can play without
having to connect to a PC.
Which then begs the question; is it even worth the hassle?
Yes, the PC versions do look better but I spent A LOT of time dialing the settings in,
in these games and even though I was able to get them to run it wasn't always smooth
sailing.
The 4GB of VRAM on the 1650 is a major limiting factor.
Turning the resolution down does help to some degree but then that degrades the overall
experience in my opinion.
If you already own a GTX 1650 and would like to try using it to play some VR you now have
an idea of what kind of experience you're going to get.
But if you're someone wanting to get in to PC VR and are thinking about buying a GTX
1650 to do it, I would recommend getting a used GTX 1080 before I would EVER recommend
buying the 1650, because it mops the floor with the 1650, and as of the making of this
video, can be found for around the same amount of money or even less than a 1650.
If you're wanting something brand new though you're going to have to save up a bit more
money for something like the RX 6650XT which has 8GB of VRAM and is MUCH more powerful.
It currently costs about $100 more than a GTX 1650 and in my opinion is well worth the
money.
If you'd like to see how the RX 6650XT compares to the GTX 1650 check out this video popping
up in the cards right now and it will give you all the goods.