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posted by takyon on Saturday May 16 2015, @08:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the 90-to-120-fps-gpu-sales-trick dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @10:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2015, @10:12PM (#183852)

    How can somebody disagree with the fact that Windows is the most successful OS out there by a huge margin? Is 98% of the market really not enough to indicate success?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:35AM (#183946)

    Windows is so widely used mainly because it uses every dirty trick in the book to get people hooked (i.e. giving it away for free or at a discount in schools, much like a drug dealer would do for first-time clients) and to make it the de facto standard in the workplace. If more people knew the dangers of proprietary software, and realized that freedom is about more than just practical benefits, they would not accept this.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday May 17 2015, @11:02PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Sunday May 17 2015, @11:02PM (#184207)

    Who do you think is saying that? Is there anybody in this entire comment section that's denying Microsoft's market dominance?

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