Nvidia has announced a new programme called ‘GeForce GTX VR Ready’; a way to help gamers prepare for virtual reality.
Through partnerships with PC and notebook makers, as well as add-in card providers, Nvidia will deliver systems and graphics cards that can handle the demand for virtual reality. GeForce GTX VR Ready has been developed to minimise the confusion surrounding the equipment necessary to play VR games.
Virtual reality games require as much as seven times the graphics processing power of 3D games and apps. Frame rates must be driven above 90fps for two simultaneous images.
Nvidia’s Maxwell graphics architecture will be at the heart of the new programme. Maxwell was designed for VR, powering high frame rates and features such as Multi-Res Shading.
GPUs that already meet the requirements for the programme including the GTX 970, 980, 980 Ti and Titan X. Partners already announced include Acer, Alienware, HP, MSI and retailers such as Newegg and Amazon. These partners will be able to display a GeForce GTX VR Ready badge on their systems.
Nvidia’s Jason Paul told Venturebeat that there are expected to only be about 13 million PCs in the world capable of driving VR this year, although this could be extended to 25 million if game developers use Nvidia’s Gameworks software (naturally). Gameworks is said to make VR processing more efficient.
