Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Occulus Rift specs are out! Which Mac is good enough?

The only ones that could meet the specs would be a maxed out iMac/retina iMac or a Mac Pro. The high end 15-inch Macbook pro has a 750m which is nowhere near the level recommended.
 
Wow, this is so disappointing. I really didn't expect the Rift to be so demanding. I thought they were even developing it for iOS and Android.

Imagine when the day comes when all it takes to run the Rift is your iPhone X :)
 
Yeah I can't lie I find it to be pretty disappointing the what is basically the most powerful and recent apple notebook won't be able to adequately use the Rift.

I guess that tacks on one more reason why I may still consider upgrading my machine when new 15" are out (at least hoping they release one that is powerful enough).
 
Only the top of the line mac pro would hit that requirement. Those are high-end desktop GPUs, and even the retina iMac uses mobile GPUs that probably wouldn't meet the requirements.

----------
mongobongo said:
Wow, this is so disappointing. I really didn't expect the Rift to be so demanding. I thought they were even developing it for iOS and Android.

Imagine when the day comes when all it takes to run the Rift is your iPhone X :)
Click to expand...

I think it really depends on what you are running. Team Fortress 2 has way lower requirements than Crysis 3, etc.
 
Yeah, those are some serious requirements relative to the current notebook landscape.

I can see why they chose not to have OSX support at launch.
 
Well I suppose that gives Apple some time to hopefully get their stuff together by the end of the year and pack in some extra horsepower into their lineup.

I would expect that they would do that too. The 750m is fine for me, but seem outdated, and the retina imac, while having power, still has requires a lot to power all those pixels. I kinda imagine it like being like the ipad 3 launch. Everything worked just fine and was good at what it does, but it was an underpowered machine whereas the iPad Air came along and really started to pack a punch.

Not to totally derail this thread, but this also another reminder for me as to why I prefer console gaming to PC. The constantly changing landscape can require new hardware all the time, whereas anyone that has a launch day PS4 will be able to use their upcoming VR offering without having to upgrade (as far as has been indicated). There, of course, are numerous trade offs that come along with that comparison, but still...
 
mongobongo said:
Take the current 13" rMBP for example, how close is it to these specs?
Click to expand...

I almost thought you were joking.

This oculus rift needs a $1200 gaming PC to run.(which is a lot nowadays for a self built custom gaming PC) Even the maxed retina iMac wouldn't meet the GPU requirements. I only see a D500 or D700 Mac Pro with good dual GPU scaling pulling it off.

Even if Apple upgraded the 15" rMBP right now with a 950M, it still wouldn't be anywhere close to enough.

An Intel HD 6100 on the 13"? LOL
 
Yeah mobile GPUs are probably at least two years away from scraping by that requirement. Integrated GPUs? Hard to say given their rapid improvement but certainly longer than that...
 
mongobongo said:
The minimum required specs for the Occulus Rift are out:

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

https://www.oculus.com/blog/powering-the-rift/


Take the current 13" rMBP for example, how close is it to these specs?

What Mac today meets the requirements?
Click to expand...
You definitely need to learn how to read system requirements if you think a 13" can get anywhere near what is required.

And I'm not saying this to put you down. Only that by learning this you'll know what runs and doesn't on pretty much all computers.
 
GrindedDown said:
Yeah I can't lie I find it to be pretty disappointing the what is basically the most powerful and recent apple notebook won't be able to adequately use the Rift.

I guess that tacks on one more reason why I may still consider upgrading my machine when new 15" are out (at least hoping they release one that is powerful enough).
Click to expand...

The Rift is running two high-level displays at a very high refresh rate to make it work effectively - it's at least three or four times more GPU power than it takes to run a "regular" 1080p setup.

At this point, it's high end desktop GPUs only.
 
Only around 5% of gaming computers that are currently in use would meet those requirements (based on the latest steam survey). As the fastest Macs barely touch upper-mid-range gaming computers, I don't find it surprising. But man, those are some ridiculous hardware specs they ask for. I wonder how will their business model work out. They really seem to target a very narrow segment of the gaming market...
 
leman said:
Only around 5% of gaming computers that are currently in use would meet those requirements (based on the latest steam survey). As the fastest Macs barely touch upper-mid-range gaming computers, I don't find it surprising. But man, those are some ridiculous hardware specs they ask for. I wonder how will their business model work out. They really seem to target a very narrow segment of the gaming market...
Click to expand...

They're targeting the people with far too much disposable income and ignoring the other 95% of the gaming community
 
You know I think this could all have the really big ancillary benefit of pushing graphics cards and computing power into more machines. although the requirements seems very high at the moment, I think sales of higher performance machines and components will rise because of demanding devices like the rift, which as a product will help to expand the appeal or pc gaming. When sales rise, companies begin to compete for the profit. When the businesses compete, profits margins lower, newer developments are made etc. Who can say if it will have that big of an effect though.

I should also clarify that it really wasn't surprising to me how demanding a product like the rift will be. I just really want to use one and was hoping to not have to upgrade.
 
Um, guys - attached is a picture of the recommended NVIDIA GTX 970 GPU - it will cost a little under $400.

Are some of you really surprised the GPU in a macbook pro won't be able to handle Oculus Rift?

Some of these GPU's alone are almost bigger than your whole computer.

Please be joking when you believe your 13" will be able to compete with the nvidia card...

If you bought a mac for serious gaming, you've made a huge mistake..
 

Attachments

  • 57a.jpg
    57a.jpg
    168.8 KB · Views: 77
mongobongo said:
Wow, this is so disappointing. I really didn't expect the Rift to be so demanding. I thought they were even developing it for iOS and Android.

Imagine when the day comes when all it takes to run the Rift is your iPhone X :)
Click to expand...

And people said the 'dedicated GPU is dead'.

No. It isn't. Between higher res displays (4K, 5K), multiple 4k display output, running games and graphics-intensive applications (Video/3D rendering, ...) and support for virtual reality hardware like the Oculus Rift...

Integrated won't cut it.

By far.

David58117 said:
Um, guys - attached is a picture of the recommended NVIDIA GTX 970 GPU - it will cost a little under $400.

Are some of you really surprised the GPU in a macbook pro won't be able to handle Oculus Rift?

Some of these GPU's alone are almost bigger than your whole computer.

Please be joking when you believe your 13" will be able to compete with the nvidia card...

If you bought a mac for serious gaming, you've made a huge mistake..
Click to expand...

Have a look at the Maxwell cards. 970M (in the new Razer Blade 14", with the exterior and the internals being a carbon copy of the rMBP 15"), 980M... 80% of desktop performance.

Mobile dGPUs are catching up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back