Z Book G2 graphics card / GPU upgrade for virtual reality / HTC Vive possible?

[nickoh1]

Hi.

I have a Z Book G2 with a Nvidia Quadro K1100M graphics card / GPU. The Steam VR Performance Test tells me that this is not enough for VR.

Is it possible to uprade to another GPU that is ready for VR? And if so, which ones would be suitable?

I think I did not fully understand MXM yet.

As I understood an external GPU is not an option because the Laptop only has Thunderbolt 2 not 3. eGPUs like the HP Omen only work with Thunderbolt 3 right?

Is there any way to get it work with the HTC Vive?

Thank you very much

Best regards

Nickoh

[Huffer]

MXM seems like it would be the same as a desktop video card...but it is quirky and difficult. 

The problem for these workstations is that they are set up for Quadro engineering cards and not GeForce gaming cards. 

The best MXM card listed in the manual is a K2100M...and for VR the minimum is a GTX 1060 and you really need a GTX 1070. 

Here's the comparison:

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-K2100M-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1070/m7811vs3609

No contest. 

Here is a GTX 1070 MXM card...you have to pay attention to the slots and where the core and cooling fan bolts to the card.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Clevo-P570WM-VGA-Upgrade-Kit-NEW-NVIDIA-GTX-1070-8GB-DDR5-MXM-3-0b-82x105mm-...

You can see the HP K2100M looks different; smaller package and as the person who made this video notes, the Zbook G2 has a BIOS that is not strictly MXM compliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzXyPyyi-PA

So, bottom line I do not think you can get that laptop to do VR. 

[nickoh1]

Hi.

thank you for the answer even if it is no good news.

I read something about newer Quadro Cards for "professional VR".

Do you think some of these would fit? I also was not able to figure out, wher the "VR ready"-thing starts with quadro cards.

regards

Nickoh

[afgbkqahuafkj]

I'm not sure if you are still interested but this is doable but it will require considerably time, effort and cash on your part so you might just want to buy a VR ready laptop and be done with it but if you're interested in transforming you G2 Zbook 15 into a system that will support an MXM-B card I have done the mods to my own system got it working and ran a Rift off of the setup http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/need-help-geforce-gtx-1070n-successfully-installed-in-a-g1-z...