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Baseline hardware requirements to run the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset have been determined. They recommend a NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD Radeon R9 290 equivalent or greater GPU, an Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater CPU, 8 GB RAM, 2x USB 3.0 ports and "HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297 MHz clock via a direct output architecture."
Oculus chief architect Atman Binstock explains: "On the raw rendering costs: a traditional [1920×1080] game at 60 Hz requires 124 million shaded pixels per second. In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90 Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift's rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second. This means that by raw rendering costs alone, a VR game will require approximately 3x the GPU power of 1080p rendering." He also points out that PC graphics can afford a fluctuating frame rate — it doesn't matter too much if it bounces between 30-60 fps. The Rift has no such luxury, however.
The last requirement is more onerous: Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 or newer. Binstock says their development for OS X and Linux has been "paused" so they can focus on delivering content for Microsoft Windows. They have no timeline for going back to the less popular platforms.
Are there any good alternatives that make use of a more open GPU (say, from Intel) from a VR manufacturer that provides proper support for FOSS platforms? Even better would be if the RAM requirement were lower, and something other than USB were used, perhaps Ethernet. And an alternative to HDMI that doesn't require a 10,000 US$ fee per manufacturer, regardless if you make 10 circuits or 100,000.
Tom's Hardware and Anandtech.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @09:27PM
Why the fuck was that shit modded "Informative"?
Binary blobs are innovation. They're used because companies want to keep their advanced, cutting edge technology secret for the time being, as a commercial competitive advantage.
Open source software is typically the opposite of innovation. It's typically just an attempt to reimplement whatever the binary blobs contain. Just look at the Linux kernel. It was just an open source clone of SunOS, HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, and other closed source commercial UNIXes. The same is true for most of the GNU software, too.
Binary blobs are indicative of extreme innovation, beyond what has been done before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @09:51PM
Please do not mix up kernel with OS.
o GNU is the OS - that matches up more with unix: AIX, HP-UX, BSD, ...
o Linux is the kernel - it is what "owns" the base hardware and the timing that the rest of software needs to talk to /with
o systemd, now owns the drivers and other functions... logs, drivers, ... This present to GNU "the Unix" you talked about above.
Yes, that is simplifed but helps to keep the parts straight.
For VR from Oculus Rift, it is dead to me. Just TP-LINK which has released another USB wireless that does not support anything but Windows. Even though they are using Linux in their routers and are one of the last truly configurable routers. Nice two faced operations. But then again Linksys hates users more with $250+ router that cannot even have meaning configuration and then lied about supporting OpenWRT.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @09:58PM
I think that you're the one who is mixed up.
A modern Linux distro consists of 3 parts:
1) Systemd: this is the kernel of the Linux distribution. It does pretty much everything.
2) Linux: this is the bootloader that is used to start systemd when the computer is first turned on. This will eventually be phased out, and systemd will start directly.
3) The package manager (RPM or APT): this is used to occasionally prevent the system from booting properly, by upgrading to newer versions of systemd.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fritsd on Saturday May 16 2015, @10:13PM
I don't think so.
If binary blobs are innovation, how come there are more scientists than alchemists nowadays?
IOW is Isaac Newton remembered for his 30 years of work on the philosopher's stone (yes, that one popularized by J.K. Rowling), or for his PUBLIshed work Principia Mathematica?
(I'm immodestly aiming for the +11 Insightful here ;-) I had this thought in 2009 or so and was quite well chuffed with it)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @10:15PM
Binary blobs are only a mystery to outsiders who lack the knowledge to understand them. They make perfect sense to the engineers who designed and built them. Binary blobs are innovation at its finest. They are cutting edge science and engineering at their finest. They embody knowledge that the masses are not yet capable of handling.