Caelum's Guide to making a mid-range VR computer for 2015: BONUS ROUND (peripherals)

Peripherals:

So, brand new computer; but nothing to use it with! What you need is some good HMD input devices.

A keyboard
nothing needs to be special but you need a keyboard to use your computer, you cant go using onscreen keyboard or something your whole life, but get the cheapest one possible. I grabbed this from Memory Express and I love it.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX25605

A keypad

I have a keypad and it's super useful for those games with no gamepad or hydra comparability. It's perfect because I don't have to try to find the keys my hand just sits. That said they are pricey and with more and more games getting support for other input methods it's really not worth it. I however bought the keypad for gaming (as I'm sure many of you are) and it's use for games and VR stuff has been awesome. So if your'e looking for one anyways it's a good investment though keep in mind you will probably just use it for non VR stuff in the near future.

A mouse

Again a must have, though nothing needs be fancy, left mouse, right mouse, middle mouse, scroll wheel are a necessity. Although an ergonomic fit is good for not having to look down to find the mouse. I enjoy side buttons and something to change DPI on the fly, but if money's tight at this point don't go for fancy features.

A gamepad

A gamepad like an Xbox 360 controller is amazing to have, so many games and demos have comparability I don't even think about it, I just grab the controller and put on my Rift. Anything you can get wireless that has super low latency is good in VR so I would recommend a wireless one though I have a wired and wireless from my old Xbox 360 and I'm using the wired because the wireless sounded too hard to set up and the wired was super easy.

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-other-devices/windows/xbox-controller-for-windows-setup

Headphones

If you don't already have a pair don't go getting anything expensive, a pair of stereo (again Anything you can get wireless that has super low latency is good in VR) headphones. I'm still unsure whether to get and extension cord and use my usual earphones or get dedicated wireless headphones or earphones. In all it's not worth it because Oculus's CV1's built in audio will be well worth the wait. For more thoughts on this see this forum:

https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=20101

End notes

With all of the things on this list it won't be shameful to buy cheap or because Oculus is rumored to be working on input and might even have a development version of an input device before CV1 so go ahead and wait because what we have now isn't great so do pay for something great.

INTRO: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/vr-computer-for-dummies-and-poor-people.html

CPU: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr.html

RAM: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_59.html

MOTHERBOARD: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_4.html

STORAGE: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_94.html

VIDEO CARD: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr.html

CASE, POWER SUPPLY, OPTICAL DRIVE, AND OPERATING SYSTEM: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_10.html

Caelum's Guide to making a mid-range VR computer for 2015: CASE, POWER SUPPLY, OPTICAL DRIVE, AND OPERATING SYSTEM

Sorry for the long title, but this is the big haul we're almost done. The last few things are all small so they'll all go in one post.

Caelum's Guide to making a mid-range VR computer for 2015

CASE, POWER SUPPLY, OPTICAL DRIVE, AND OPERATING SYSTEM:

CASE: Your looking at a mid tower, you won't need a lot of room, but this isn't small so medium is just right. A Velocity IW-C583 ATX Mid Tower or Thermaltake Commander G41 ATX should do it. There are so many different cases I'll mostly leave that up to your personal preference.

Power supply:
A 500w should make hold everything, you need and give room for upgrades or let you take it to your next build if you want to.

Optical Drive: This could be used for installing your operating system, I got the cheapest one because no really uses disks for installing games and there aren't any vr compatible games like that that I know of.

Operating System: I enjoy windows 7 home premium although it's quite difficult to find just walking into a store, so windows 8 is really the only other alternative because Mac and Linux have a huge lack of compatible games and demos. The only note is that you may have to use the compatibility menu on some application.

And that's it! your very own mid-range VR computer for 2015!

Good luck and have fun!

INTRO: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/vr-computer-for-dummies-and-poor-people.html

CPU: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr.html

RAM: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_59.html

MOTHERBOARD: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_4.html

STORAGE: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_94.html

VIDEO CARD: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr.html

PERIPHERALS: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_18.html

Caelum's Guide to making a mid-range VR computer for 2015: THE VIDEO CARD

Caelum's Guide to making a mid-range VR computer for 2015

THE VIDEO CARD:

INTRO: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/vr-computer-for-dummies-and-poor-people.html

CPU: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr.html

RAM: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_59.html

MOTHERBOARD: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_4.html

STORAGE: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/01/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_94.html

PERIPHERALS: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_18.html

CASE, POWER SUPPLY, OPTICAL DRIVE, AND OPERATING SYSTEM: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr_10.html

This is the price hitter, and for good reason too, this is what'll make your hmd a thing of glory, especially with the rift, once over that 75 frames per second (fps) you get rid of jitter (the choppy flicker you get when looking around)  which is a huge difference. So it ends up being all or nothing with the graphics.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-770-vs-GeForce-GTX-760

So to get that high on rift demo's (and mostly the small number of games). You should be looking at a NVIDIA geforce gtx 770, or the cheaper one NVIDIA geforce gtx 760. Dual GPU setups in this case aren't recommended, although I'm using a dual NVIDIA geforce gtx 560 becuase I stumbled across a very good deal, and it's been running splendidly.

The video card will almost surely play most things nice even when the "new vr graphics cards" are out so this will be your largest price tag that won't get full use. You may feel it's not worth the buy but the need for high vr fps is so important it's not worth it to have anything lower that 50fps. Like I said it's all or nothing and when time's up you can always sell your card if you've kept it in good condition.

NEXT: http://phantasmagoricvr.blogspot.com/2015/02/caelums-guide-to-making-mid-range-vr.html