Xps 17 rtx2060 vr support

UPDATE: Now that the XPS 17 9700 has been released, it's become clear that Dell has taken a different path from previous XPS systems.  The XPS 17 9700 has a BIOS option that allows the GeForce GPU to have direct control of the display outputs, including the built-in display.  When this option is enabled, VR becomes possible at least for DisplayPort-based headsets.  I'm not sure about HDMI-based headsets since the XPS 17 has no native HDMI outputs and I don't know if USB-C to HDMI adapters will work for VR.  G-Sync and Adaptive V-Sync should also be possible.  And although I haven't confirmed this, it seems likely that despite this not being mentioned in the specs as of this writing, the USB-C/TB3 ports should support DisplayPort 1.4 in this configuration, since the NVIDIA GPU itself does even though the Intel GPU is limited to DisplayPort 1.2.  It's possible that there's some other limitation that's limiting output to DisplayPort 1.2 even when the NVIDIA GPU is controlling the output, but that seems unlikely.  Lastly, note that enabling this BIOS setting will likely reduce battery life, since in this setup the NVIDIA GPU cannot be disabled, which is possible in the default mode when the Intel GPU controls all outputs and the NVIDIA GPU is only activated when its performance would be beneficial to the application(s) in use.

Original post below,

@Kdunbar  The specs (and Dell's overall product design decisions thus far) would suggest no.  The reason I say that is that the specs indicate that the USB-C/TB3 ports only support DisplayPort 1.2.  That suggests that they are wired to the system's Intel GPU, since the GPU built into the CPUs used in the XPS 17 still only supports DP 1.2.  If they were wired directly to the NVIDIA GPU, they would support DP 1.4.  Additionally, I have yet to see any Dell systems wire their USB-C/TB3 video outputs to a discrete GPU.  Even Alienware systems that have other outputs wired directly to the NVIDIA GPU have the USB-C/TB3 ports wired to the Intel GPU.  The only semi-exception is the Precision 7000 Series models, which have a BIOS option allowing you to choose which GPU controls the outputs, since they have a more complex motherboard design to allow that flexibility.

When a display output is wired to the Intel GPU, the NVIDIA GPU operates as a render-only advice using a technology called NVIDIA Optimus, which basically involves the NVIDIA GPU doing all the work and then passing completed video frames to the Intel GPU, which sends them to the display(s).  This is great for battery life since it means the NVIDIA GPU can be shut down when it's not needed, whereas if it was directly controlling the display outputs, it would need to stay active whenever a display was attached to that output, even if nothing graphics-intensive was going on -- and some people use external displays/projectors on battery power.  The downside to the Optimus design is that there are certain technologies that Intel GPUs (currently) don't support passing through and/or that require that an NVIDIA GPU have direct control of the display output.  These technologies include VR, G-Sync, Adaptive V-Sync, stereoscopic 3D, 5K resolution (in the case of the Intel GPU here that doesn't support it), DisplayPort link aggregation, and possibly some others.