Oculus Rift specs announced

#1

Oculus VR has revealed the recommended computer specifications required to run its Rift headset and has promised these specs will hold throughout the lifetime of the headset.

  • NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
  • Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
  • 8GB+ RAM

Apart from the above, the Rift will also require:

  • Windows 7 SP1 or newer
  • 2x USB 3.0 ports
  • HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297MHz clock via a direct output architecture

“The goal is for all Rift games and applications to deliver a great experience on this configuration by default. We believe this ‘it just works’ experience will be fundamental to VR’s success, given that an underperforming system will fail to deliver comfortable presence,” said chief architect Atman Binstock.

“The recommended spec will stay constant over the lifetime of the Rift. As the equivalent-performance hardware becomes less expensive, more users will have systems capable of the full Rift experience. Developers, in turn, can rely on Rift users having these modern machines, allowing them to optimize their game for a known target, simplifying development.”

Also, http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/15/8612027/oculus-rift-pc-recommended-specs

#2

Seems like they’re intentionally low-balling the requirements from what I’ve been hearing. I would assume you’d need double that, SLI’d 970s.

#3

Really? I was expecting way lower specs. I had gotten the impression that they were aiming at a mainstream audience. I’m an enthusiast with a gaming PC and my current setup isn’t going to cut it.

#4

I mean if we’re talking about big, AAA PC games? Yeah, I think so. You want to try running the Witcher 3 with a Rift? A 970 on med-high settings in 1080p is going to struggle to stay at a good framerate. Then if you’re talking about that game in the rift?

“On the raw rendering costs: a traditional 1080p game at 60Hz requires 124 million shaded pixels per second. In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second,” he explained. "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.

Seems like they’re low-balling it.

#5

Have they announced the price yet? If it’s $300 and you need a $1000 PC for it then it can’t possibly sell well.

#6

Hence the horsepower downplay.

No price yet.

#7

Games Industry | Oculus Rift will cost in the “$1,500 range” with a PC

#8

Well honestly, what did people expect?

Seems a bit obvious that you might need a high end pc to play high end pc games.

#9

The 1440p 27" monitor I have probably runs a higher cost than the rift, I don’t see why people think this will be such a debilitating barrier to entry.

On the other hand, this might be the only area where PS4’s Morpheus could get a foothold in the market, being the affordable experience. We’ll see if the experiences themselves are worth it, though.

But what’s good for one VR product is good for the whole market. So more power to them!

#10

I don’t care that much for VR. I have pretty good specs for my computer, but to be honest, despite buying a new computer to play games on it, I have rarely been playing any high specs demanding games. I’ve just been playing on my PS4. Anyway, I would rather settle for Morpheus, and since it won’t be the optimal experience for VR, I’m okay with that. As long as it’s fun. I still don’t think VR is going to make a big splash in video games. In other markets? Perhaps.