There are several ways PC users can test their systems to see if they can handle virtual reality (VR). Oculus has its own, and there are benchmarking apps from companies such as Futuremark that can also do the job. Back in 2013 GPU manufacturer NVIDIA launched its benchmarking tool FCAT for free and now its had an overhaul relaunching today as FCAT VR.
NVIDIA announced FCAT VR earlier this month during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017, allowing reviewers, developers, hardware manufacturers and enthusiasts a way to test the performance of VR videogames on PC.
Unlike other benchmarking tools, FCAT VR has been designed specifically for GPU’s rather than a general test for PC’s. It reads a range of performance data from driver stats, event tracing for Windows, events for Oculus Rift and SteamVR’s API data for HTC Vive.
This intern will allow users to create charts and analyse data for a range of variables including framerates, dropped frames, runtime warp dropped frames, Asynchronous Space Warp (ASW) synthesized frames and more, all of which can impede VR performance.
The app can be downloaded through Geforce.com, where NVIDIA has released a ‘how to’ guide on setting up the software.
NVIDIA has been a dominant force in the VR industry having released the 10 series graphic cards in 2016 as well as VR Funhouse, a demonstration of the company’s latest technology such as NVIDIA FleX, NVIDIA Flow, NVIDIA HairWorks, NVIDIA PhysX Destruction and NVIDIA VRWorks’ Multi-Res Shading.
Most recently it announced the range topping GeForce 1080 Ti, offering a 35% speed increase over its predecessor the GeForce GTX 1080, it’s even faster than the current TITAN X. And hardware partner MAINGEAR has now added the GTX 1080 Ti to its range of PC’s
Checkout NVIDIA’s FCAT VR introduction video below, and for further announcements for the company, keep reading VRFocus.