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Oculus Rift Development on OS X 'Paused' to Focus on Strong Windows Launch
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I see a lot of intent there but not much more. If you pull up a list of intent to develop for Android, you'll see thousands of developers but it's meaningless because they all do iOS first because that's where they get their return on investment. Developers for games do consoles first, PC second and maybe Mac/Linux eventually. They will never do Oculus first if they can make more money on the PC/console versions without choking their own resources. Now consider that the customers have to buy a $300 VR headset in addition to the $50 software game and you realize why there will not be more than 10 games released in 2016.
Then why even develop games and release in 2016? It sounds like they should be developing the true social VR experience and release that when ready. Everyone is going to beat Oculus to market and if the platforms are proprietary, customers will go where the games are. There is zero hardware loyalty.
You clearly do not understand gaming, while it will take a few generations for it to mature, the oculus is potentially a game changer in gaming. Facebook is taking what I would call a excellent gamble with it.
Haven't read this thread all the way through, however I'm sure I'm not the only to have read the Rift specs and can see that the 2013 Mac Pro (even the base model) would far exceed the specs.
Yes, lots of Macs won't meet the specs, however there are plenty of Windows PCs (perhaps most) out there that won't meet those specs either.
If someone has spent lots of money on a gaming PC they might buy a rift. If someone has spent oodles of money on a Mac Pro (like me) then they might also be interested in a Rift (to play Elite Dangerous, for example).
Saying that the available Mac user base is small is true, yes, but the Windows user base who will be able to run this gadget (as a proportion of Windows machines) is going to be small too.
Then there's the whole PR side of this decision. Some Windows fans will be pleased because they're bitter and twisted, but this approach will upset Mac users who might stop following Oculus on Twitter and just not bother with the whole VR thing either now or in the future (until a competitor fills the void).
Yes, lots of Macs won't meet the specs, however there are plenty of Windows PCs (perhaps most) out there that won't meet those specs either.
If someone has spent lots of money on a gaming PC they might buy a rift. If someone has spent oodles of money on a Mac Pro (like me) then they might also be interested in a Rift (to play Elite Dangerous, for example).
Saying that the available Mac user base is small is true, yes, but the Windows user base who will be able to run this gadget (as a proportion of Windows machines) is going to be small too.
Then there's the whole PR side of this decision. Some Windows fans will be pleased because they're bitter and twisted, but this approach will upset Mac users who might stop following Oculus on Twitter and just not bother with the whole VR thing either now or in the future (until a competitor fills the void).
Exactly. As an example I've got a 2012 mini 2.3 quad 16GB & Apple Care. It retailed for about $1100.00. I just bought an HP Z230 workstation 3.6 Hasell i7 quad with 8GB RAM for almost the same amount of money.
The mini runs Intel HD 4000 while the HP has Intel HD 4600. The HD 4600 is hardly a gaming GPU but it's about 175% as fast as the HD 4000.
Regarding the Oculus Rift I'm pretty much screwed with the mini. However the HP has the capacity for 32GB RAM and has both PCIe 2 and PCIe slots for medium powered GPUs and other necessary cards.
I remember reading somewhere that only about 10% of steam users use OS X , they are not shooting themselves in the foot. They are making the right decision to target the majority of the markert.
Sad that your hackintosh is running OS X and Occulus won't be available for it? OR Sad that your hackintosh's hardware specs don't qualify to use the gear?
If your Mac or Hack has the specs just install Windows on it. Problem solved.
And that's the main issue, GPUs, apple has mobile versions at best, a gamer will put most of their money into the best GPU they can get. And desktop GPUs smoke mobile ones.
You can bang in a new GPU into your HP and play the newest games, Apple devices are integrated.
I'm sure someone will bring up the Mac Pro, the 7970 is a very old GPU, and woeful value at the Mac Pro pricing.
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Just dual boot the hackintosh. Best of both worlds. You can even put in components that are compatible with oculus.
Apple sells hardware, and when you buy that hardware you pay for OS X, Apple gives you free updates. Microsoft sells software, if they gave away their software for free they would have a issue with their business model.
You also choose to ignore that yoshimite was very buggy at launch.
I guarantee you , you are not getting anything for free from apple or Microsoft .
Aside from a Mac Pro, which makes can even meet Occulus' minimum specs (R9 290).
There simply isn't enough mac users capable of using Oculus.
What many here don't realize is that Macs are extremely terrible gaming rigs for core gamers. PC is still where it is at - and will be for the foreseeable future.
Why? Because omnibenevolent Apple doesn't have a consumer grade machine where you can plug a gaming class GPU into. After years of hoping that they'd do so, I gave up hope and went back to PCs. Certainly Jony Ive isn't going to bequeath us with such a thing.
Whereas you can buy a very inexpensive PC that can drive some killer (multi-GPU) graphics cards.
The echo chamber in here is quite deafening, if you think these guys are low-end spenders. They spend more money on their computers than most Apple users - and the machines are much, much faster on the graphics front. Orders of magnitude faster.
These guys have money to blow on gaming hardware - and these are probably the early adopters that Occulus wants.
Why? Because omnibenevolent Apple doesn't have a consumer grade machine where you can plug a gaming class GPU into. After years of hoping that they'd do so, I gave up hope and went back to PCs. Certainly Jony Ive isn't going to bequeath us with such a thing.
Whereas you can buy a very inexpensive PC that can drive some killer (multi-GPU) graphics cards.
The echo chamber in here is quite deafening, if you think these guys are low-end spenders. They spend more money on their computers than most Apple users - and the machines are much, much faster on the graphics front. Orders of magnitude faster.
These guys have money to blow on gaming hardware - and these are probably the early adopters that Occulus wants.
Couple reasons:
1. OSx, it's drivers, do not update quickly, nor are as strong performance wise as in Windows. Especially for gaming graphics.
AMD and nvidia in particular are frequently updating their windows drivers to provide the absolute BEST performance out of their cards in Windows. But the requirements in OSx have made this sort of quick update practice harder.
2. Apple itself does not really sell "gaming" computers. When you consider that Apple is roughly only 10% of the entire computing world. And of that small number, The computers they do sell mostly come with intel integrated graphics and IIRC, there's no current model with discreet GPU's.
Combining all of this, it make sense for them to focus most of their efforts on Windows based gaming. For now at least.
Apple really eneds to work on their gaming chops. games on the exact same hardware, between two different platforms can run anywhere from 10% to 50% slower in OSx.
An example recently I tested was World Of Warcraft (6.1 patch). fresh installs between the two. bootcamp for windows. OSx 10.10 for OSx.
at native resolution of the MBA, Windows was able to run WoW at native resolution, with 'medium' settings ran at 30-45fps.
in OSx, I had to run low settings, at a smaller resolution to maintain 25fps.
OSx is just not a great platform for gaming. its an unfortunate truth of the matter.
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what hardware?
Facebook fail...
Here's two more nails for the Oculus Rift Coffin...
Sony Morpheus (for games)
Google Magic Leap (for everything else)
Here's two more nails for the Oculus Rift Coffin...
Sony Morpheus (for games)
Google Magic Leap (for everything else)
The ball in on apple side
As much as I hate these news, it's good for apple to realise companies are backing out because they are laggin behind. Video cards are one generation below, drivers for such video cards even more. The same macbook pro gives 20% more fps running windows than OS X. VR will tax the computer and gpu and apple is falling behind, all the resources are at iOS, OS X feels already behind the curve. OpenGl is also behind, seems like they are only focused on iOS hardware, for instance Intel is selling the new Xeons since October 2014 and we still have no Mac Pro updates... sad news.
(This comes from a long time mac user, have never used a pc/windows).
As much as I hate these news, it's good for apple to realise companies are backing out because they are laggin behind. Video cards are one generation below, drivers for such video cards even more. The same macbook pro gives 20% more fps running windows than OS X. VR will tax the computer and gpu and apple is falling behind, all the resources are at iOS, OS X feels already behind the curve. OpenGl is also behind, seems like they are only focused on iOS hardware, for instance Intel is selling the new Xeons since October 2014 and we still have no Mac Pro updates... sad news.
(This comes from a long time mac user, have never used a pc/windows).
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Makes sense
This may change with Metal, but Apple wasn't a gaming platform at all until iOS. And they've never allowed direct access to the GPU. This is changing, but the numbers in this area are in Windows still.
But we got Instant Articles first!
This may change with Metal, but Apple wasn't a gaming platform at all until iOS. And they've never allowed direct access to the GPU. This is changing, but the numbers in this area are in Windows still.
But we got Instant Articles first!