Why do VR games need so much more power to run?

Question

One thing that’s throwing me for a loop is that VR games run at fairly normal resolutions. For instance, the oculus rift S only has a 1440p screen, it’s the same 2560x1440p resolution. A GTX 1070 or higher can run most games at that resolution at 90fps or above. So with worse lighting quality what makes these games so demanding to run with the same hardware?

In: Technology

Answer 1

To achieve an authentic 3D effect, VR games need to render two separate images for every frame, one for each eye. So straight off the bat you need nearly double the horsepower for the same resolution on a single monitor.
Also there is a lot of extra positional tracking data which is being processed simultaneously.