Update

It took a lot more digging, but I did find the source of this problem. While the video card *did* match requirements the problem was the processor generation. Since it was below the required generation there were some features that were not enabled in the video card drivers. Since some features were not enabled in the video card drivers the video card itself appeared to not meet requirements.

Original

I’ve got some Windows Mixed Reality Immersive headsets in hand. The experience is pretty cool. But I wanted to figure out what the minimum requirements are to use them so that we could get new hardware for some of the other developers. Microsoft has minimum requirements listed on a page. Not being one to take such a thing on word value (especially not for a new product) I decided to validate these requirements. The item I was questioning was the video card. The requirements list the NVidia GTX 1050 as the minimum video card. I made my way over to my local Best Buys and picked one up.

It was installed into a Machine that already had the Windows 10 Creator’s Update on it. When I started the Mixed Reality application I got the following.

I tried several driver versions from the ones released in April (version 381.65, which were the first to have VR support) to the most recent at the time of this writing (385.28).

Digging a little deeper I received a rather cryptic message from the NVidia GeForce software on Virtual Reality support. The software told me that this video card didn’t meet requirements for Virtual Reality. I needed to have at least an NVidia GTX 1050, and the card in the machine was only a NVidia GTX 1050. That’s not a typo, it showed the same card for both the required minimum and what was installed. I get the impression that there was the intention to support VR in this card but it just never happened.

As of yet the consumer release of the Mixed Reality features has not occurred. We are still in a time frame in which things could change rapidly. This card might be supported by then. From some exchanges with others though of you are looking to get a card that supports the Windows Mixed Reality headsets start of with NVidia’s GTX 1060 as a minimum.