As digital technology continues to seep into every aspect of our analog lives, it seems it was only a matter of time before it started to replace our plain old visual experiences with something a little more tantalizing.

Head-mounted displays, or HMDs, are an almost ancient piece of tech which have begun to see a reboot in the past few years as computers get more powerful, and the games inside them more visually spectacular by the day.

After years of waiting, dozens of different developer kits, and more beta tests than we can shake a stick at, the era of truly immersive virtual reality headsets is finally upon us. Both HTC’s Vive and Facebook’s Oculus Rift are primed and prepped to hit shelves for everyone to buy for themselves…but with HD screens and gigabytes of extra data for things like movement and spacial positioning, what do these systems really need to get up and running completely?