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It's been almost a year now since Oculus announced that the consumer version of the Rift virtual reality headset would only support Windows PCs at launch—a turnaround from development kits that worked fine on Mac and Linux boxes. Now, according to Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, it "is up to Apple" to change that state of affairs. Specifically, "if they ever release a good computer, we will do it," he told Shacknews recently.
Basically, Luckey continued, even the highest-end Mac you can buy would not provide an enjoyable experience on the final Rift hardware, which is significantly more powerful than early development kits. "It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn't prioritize high-end GPUs," he said. "You can buy a $6,000 Mac Pro with the top-of-the-line AMD FirePro D700, and it still doesn't match our recommended specs."
"So if they prioritize higher-end GPUs like they used to for a while back in the day, we'd love to support Mac. But right now, there's just not a single machine out there that supports it," he added. "Even if we can support on the software side, there's just no audience that could run the vast majority of software on it."
Source: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/03/oculus-founder-rift-will-come-to-mac-if-apple-ever-release-a-good-computer/.
See also: Shacknews blog.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2016, @03:11PM
As much as I dislike this whole idea of VR, I can support their decision not to degrade the experience. Doing so would compromise their product and make it less likely people would actually want it.
Or in other words, they go against this particular behavior: "When talking to customers, we tell them we only sell the best, nothing but the best of the best for the customer. When we purchase our materials, we look for the cheapest possible thing... so 'we can pass that saving on to the customer'..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2016, @03:19PM
It's more likely that people will go "you mean I have to buy a new, several thousand dollar computer, just to play Rift games? Screw VR!"
I mean, that's what I would say, anyway. But then again, hardcore gamers seem perfectly fine with spending a few grand on a new 'rig' every now and then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2016, @04:07PM
I just bought a fast i7 w/16g memory and put a good but cheap gtx750ti card in it. It plays every game at full detail settings, but it doesn't pass the VR test. Oh well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2016, @12:54AM
Buy a better video card.
Your bottle neck is the cheap ass card. But you knew that.