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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) by julian on Friday March 04 2016, @05:12PM
It's not really a hardware problem. There's about 10% of the population who are biologically incapable of enjoying 3D movies/VR and for the same reason. It causes eye-strain and nausea to focus your eyes in the way required when you have two separate screens showing slightly different images that close to them. I'm in that group, unfortunately. Until we have real VR, Matrix-style brain plugs, I'm not going to be able to use this stuff.
I'm not terribly disappointed, tbh. It seems gimmicky and stupid.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday March 04 2016, @05:40PM
I can enjoy it, but I need to hold a vomit bucket between my knees. VR also gives me crushing migraine headaches, but for that, there's always heroin.
Of course, my experience is with the DK1, and I understand they've improved quite a bit. So, we'll see.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Saturday March 05 2016, @01:19AM
psilocybin is better against migraine than heroin.
psilocybin is also better for VR than heroin, you do not need the headset!!!
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday March 04 2016, @06:25PM
I don't think that's necessarily true given an increase in frame rates and resolution.
Consumer Oculus Rift is 1080×1200 per eye @ 90 Hz.
Developer Kit 2 was 960×1080 per eye @ 75 Hz.
Developer Kit 1 was 640×800 per eye @ 60 Hz.
Most smartphones inserted into cardboard are probably limited at 60 Hz.
AMD and others have talked about an initial target of 120 Hz frame rate, with AMD specifying 240 Hz in the far future. 90 Hz is described as the minimum rate necessary to avoid eye strain. They also mentioned "16K per eye" resolution [soylentnews.org]. They want to keep selling GPUs, so it's no surprise they want the requirements to skyrocket.
Let the early adopters describe whether they are killing their eyes at these higher resolutions and framerates. Wait 5 years and the hardware will be much better and there will be much more content available, and you can just borrow a friend's headset to test it for yourself.
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