Oculus Rift Development on OS X 'Paused' to Focus on Strong Windows Launch

[wesk702]

Tried this at CES this year. They're absolutely right about not being able to explain the experience without actually trying it. It was pretty mind blowing and instantly made me a guaranteed purchaser once released.
Mac delay?

 

[v3rlon]

They need to focus on resolution. The screen door effect is very noticeable, but the head tracking is really good.

 

[whatos]

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).

Excellent post, I'm in agreement with you.

Unfortunately iOS is eating away at OS X slowly rendering Apples once excellent desktop OS a system in decline. Apples obsession with mass market gadgets like the Watch prevents them from giving OS X the attention it deserves.

 

[old-mac-man]

(I've been stereoscopic for more than 5 years now.)

Unless gamers are given useful new abilities with VR I suspect it will stay a niche area.

If something hadn't taken off after 5 years in the tech area, I'd be beginning to suspect it may never take off, at least in its present format.

 

[old-mac-man]

Tried this at CES this year. They're absolutely right about not being able to explain the experience without actually trying it. It was pretty mind blowing and instantly made me a guaranteed purchaser once released.
Mac delay?

Mind blowing the first time, but what were you able to do usefully that you couldn't on a 2-D screen?

 

[shadowmatt]

Since Windows 8 was released, each new version of Windows has been a reboot, and the OSs image has suffered as a result. OS X is a much more mature platform at this point, so I find it a little perplexing that OS X would be put on pause. We don't yet know how Windows 10 will be received in the marketplace, at the same time that Apple's share is growing, so this move may have been a bit misguided.

Windows 8 / 7 is a great platform for gaming and has a massive installed user base. There is no such thing on the Mac.

Further Windows 8 is highly configurable and Nvidia release new drivers all the time to support the latest games and cards. Something Apple doesn't do.

Windows 10 is going to be a free upgrade but people still on 7 and 8 won't miss out, a lot of the underlying code is the same.

But apart from a top end Mac Pro you won't see a off the shelf Mac capable of running the Oculus, It needs a machine capable of rendering at 3x 1080p at 90fps to meet the requirements.

I have a Mac Mini i7 with an external Nvidia 670 gpu. It runs most current games at 720 / 1080 at a decent frame rate in Windows 8 but that card can not do anything more.

The high end cards and SLi cards can pump out 4K if you play around with the settings and this is pretty much going to be the required spec if you want to play games at decent levels of detail on the headset.

 

[the8thark]

Can Macs even play games?

Blizzard Entertainment
QED

 

[coolspot18]

OS X is a much more mature platform at this point, so I find it a little perplexing that OS X would be put on pause.

OSX is also out of date in many respects like having a decent 3D framework (i.e. Direct3D). Not to mention, the gaming marketshare on the Mac is miniscule.

 

[Dorje Sylas]

While I know VR will be useful in a variety of NON-gaming fields, I remain unconvinced of its mass market appeal. The early adoption cost (including cost of PC able to effectively run them) is so far become the current "consumer" market as to make it unfeasible. This in turn retards development housed putting money into VR products, which causes inferior or half-hearted products, which lower the demand for VR in the first place. VR is not the new "cell phone" or "laptop" that we will be ooing and awing in 20 years. Its the next 3, 4, 5, 6+ display setup, a VERY useful minor market tool in architecture, engineering, medicine/surgery, drone-control/exploration... NOT mass market entertainment.

While I am disppointed with Apple's continued sluggish and woefully outdated development of GPU resources, a point remains....

APPLE MAKES APPLIANCES. They stopped making enthusiast electronics a few years back. VR is an enthusiast toy, not a mass makert consumer device. If my some fluke it does take off in 10 years, (and Apple survives on their torpid and mundain course) Apple will be in position to roll out their own mass market version and claim "innovation" on it.

=======

I'd put more stock in Augmented Reality devices than Virtual Reality. Apple Watches are more or less a first step in that road for Apple and look at how they are being received.

 

[Aeolius]

I'd put more stock in Augmented Reality devices than Virtual Reality.

They just need to crack that price point. $1,500... ouch. Wrap 1200DXAR

Never mind adding a 360 treadmill into the mix! Virtuix Omni

 

[star-affinity]

OSX is also out of date in many respects like having a decent 3D framework (i.e. Direct3D). Not to mention, the gaming marketshare on the Mac is miniscule.

True. I think/hope Apple will announce that Vulkan (successor to OpenGL) will be supported in the next OS X release.

https://www.khronos.org/vulkan

----------

Given Apple's history of updating OpenGL drivers, I wouldn't expect to see Vulkan in OS X for another year or two.

Do you really think they will wait that long? I mean Apples is part of the Kronos group, and they even have their logo in the Vulkan page:

https://www.khronos.org/vulkan

 

[2IS]

You're taking that about 10 steps further than it needs to go. Seriously, just stop because gaming on a Mac is not "shockingly bad" neither are the GPU's "garbage".

From someone who owns both and is a gamer... It is, and for gaming purposes, they are.

 

[mw360]

Do you really think they will wait that long? I mean Apples is part of the Kronos group, and they even have their logo in the Vulkan page:

https://www.khronos.org/vulkan

Yes, and Apple still can't get OpenCL to work as well as it does on Windows and Linux...

http://preta3d.com/os-x-users-unite/

The reason why I’m writing to you is that, after waiting for years, we still have broken GPU drivers on OS X. Scenes that render perfectly well on Windows and even on Linux simply abort on OS X. This is happening with both AMD and nVidia GPUs.

The problem is unsolvable from our side. We need updated, fixed drivers for OS X. The problem is so bad hat our main OS X developer has announced, today, that he is giving up OS X. He simply can’t do his job.

 

[MH01]

Great point. My Tri-SLI 780 have plenty of power to play current games at high settings, but if I want to up my specs to use oculus rift, I don't have to buy an entire system. I buy the components I want... and not what the manufacture gives you.

BTW... Nice rig in your sig. X79 is still a beast. You are tempting me to go with Titan's... LOL

You nailed it! The choice of buying the components you want equates to a much better quality system. Also love how all systems these days are designed to be pushed and overclocked

The 780s Rock!!!

 

[mi7chy]

Not surprised since gaming is nearly non-existent on Mac OS X. For VR it seems to be Windows and Android.

 

[tdale]

I'd be surprised if Windows 10 didn't end up with more installs than all versions of all non-Windows OSs running on computers within 3 months of its release. It sounds like a pretty solid upgrade over both 7 and 8, plus it's a free upgrade from 7 or 8.

Within 3 years of the release of Windows 10, I'd expect it to be installed on 70% of all computers (and for some small percentage to be running 7 and 8.) OS X may be growing every year, but going from Windows 7 or 8 to 10 is going to be a pretty easy transition (download and install, for free) compared to moving to OS X (buy an expensive computer, then figure out how to transfer all your old stuff). So I'd expect Windows 10 will grow far faster than OS X.

Having said that, I'm surprised Oculus Rift thinks that OS X is such a small market as to not be worth targeting. I can't find any numbers on the matter, but I'd expect a large number of people in game development (less than half, but more than you see for general computer usage) using OS X. So they're shooting themselves in the foot.

Its not that, Mac graphics are middle of the road, and onboard only in general. OR needs decent graphic performance. Even an iMac runs an inbuilt mobile graphics system. Mobile!

 

[amagus]

Its not that, Mac graphics are middle of the road, and onboard only in general. OR needs decent graphic performance. Even an iMac runs an inbuilt mobile graphics system. Mobile!

No kidding. It's hard to see why any Mac fans would be surprised by this since there are exactly 0 Macs on the market that meet the minimum requirements posted by Oculus. Even the $4k dual D700 Mac Pro doesn't meet the spec as OS X doesn't support Crossfire and a single D700, which is basically an underclocked R9 280x, isn't nearly fast enough.

 

[till213]

People with Macs have better things to do.

Yeah. Like fighting to get Wi-Fi working.

 

[lowendlinux]

Mac hardware is now pathetic and Linux has imploded with systemd. And what is this talk about Windows 10 being the "last version of Windows"?

FreeBSD is where it's at.

Part of the Linux community has imploded because of systemd Linux has not. Systemd is now default on any distro that matters and it's only a matter of time when it will be default on all distros. We can debate all day long whether this is good or bad but Linux has not imploded.

Sticking to Windows makes perfect sense actually... it has the biggest "gaming" community overall.

I recently looked into reddit's community of PC/gaming, etc. and its thriving to say the least. There are people spending 3-4k on PCs out there..

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/
http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/




The fact that Carmack is on their team is the only reason I am remotely interested...

PC gaming has always been big and gamers have always spend a huge amount of money on PC's and SW.

This could potentially be a bit of a downfall for them depending on pricing of the unit. Apple users historically pay good $$$ for their gadgets ... Windows environments feed on the cheap. Will be interesting when they come up with pricing to see if Windows users balk ....

In my opinion, they should make console versions of this ... why limit to one environment ...

Gamers the people that this is marketed at do not "feed on the cheap". Consoles cannot drive the rift.

You're taking that about 10 steps further than it needs to go. Seriously, just stop because gaming on a Mac is not "shockingly bad" neither are the GPU's "garbage".

Yes gaming on the Mac is shockingly bad and the GPU's are garbage for gaming.

You do know that the PC Gaming market exceeds 30 Billion USD annually right? The iOS App store hasn't even reached those quantities lifetime yet.

People don't understand this because it's outside where they hang out.

Exactly, console gaming (Xbox ONE/PS4) is on top of it's game now. PC gaming is declining badly. The more recent popular games aren't even being released on PC at the same time as the Xbox ONE and PS4.

PC gaming is growing and a multibillion dollar a year industry you don't have to like it but it is.

 

[till213]

Games run better on Windows because of DirectX. OpenGL just isn't as good.

On Mac! Where we're stuck with OpenGL 4.1. Current version is 4.5, having caught up with DX11 and even surpassed it in some areas.

Besides, Apple isn't great with performance-tuning their graphic drivers! Yeah, right! nVIDIA or AMD don't even have the possibility to fine-tune their drivers, they cannot deploy them on OS X! It's all in the hands of Apple!

Or why do you think that quite often OpenGL benchmarks run up to 30% (!) faster on Bootcamp, on the very same hardware than the same benchmark on OS X? Go figure!

 

[coolspot18]

True. I think/hope Apple will announce that Vulkan (successor to OpenGL) will be supported in the next OS X release.

https://www.khronos.org/vulkan

Even with the new API Mac still suffer from two things preventing gaming:

1. The new API is untested - Direct 3D is ubiquitous when it comes to PC and Xbox gaming.

2. Mac have lower-end graphics. Without better graphic cards options, Mac gaming will always lag behind PC gaming.

Besides, Apple isn't great with performance-tuning their graphic drivers! Yeah, right! nVIDIA or AMD don't even have the possibility to fine-tune their drivers, they cannot deploy them on OS X! It's all in the hands of Apple!

Nvidia does have Mac drivers, but they don't perform all that well. I have a GTX 960 in my Hackintosh but the frame rates I get with the card are probably comparable to last generation of GPUs (so basically 20%+ slower?)

Windows environments feed on the cheap.

Uhh... PC gamers spend $800+ on the GPU alone, and some run SLI; even with a modest setup, the care is about $250.00.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

On Mac! Where we're stuck with OpenGL 4.1. Current version is 4.5, having caught up with DX11 and even surpassed it in some areas.

Besides, Apple isn't great with performance-tuning their graphic drivers! Yeah, right! nVIDIA or AMD don't even have the possibility to fine-tune their drivers, they cannot deploy them on OS X! It's all in the hands of Apple!

Or why do you think that quite often OpenGL benchmarks run up to 30% (!) faster on Bootcamp, on the very same hardware than the same benchmark on OS X? Go figure!

I'll take your word for the first point but idk about the other two.

Nvidia does release mac os x web drivers.

OpenGL benchmarks like Heaven perform the same under OS X and Windows 8.1.

 

[Steve121178]

Since Windows 8 was released, each new version of Windows has been a reboot, and the OSs image has suffered as a result. OS X is a much more mature platform at this point, so I find it a little perplexing that OS X would be put on pause. We don't yet know how Windows 10 will be received in the marketplace, at the same time that Apple's share is growing, so this move may have been a bit misguided.

The only thing that is misguided is your view on Windows.

Regardless of the public's acceptance of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 corrected most that people didn't like. And as a gamer, any games you buy will run on Windows 7, 8 & 10. Windows as about as mature as it gets for an OS and you can still run your legacy junk from 20 years ago on even the latest version of Windows. How much more mature do you want it?

With OS X, developers alienate users running anything below 10.10 with some apps!

 

[iReality85]

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.

Agreed on the echo chamber, but it is what it is. Also spot-on with the money spent by gamers.

I see nothing wrong with Oculus coming out for Windows first. If anything, it just means that OSX and Linux devs and users will get a more polished experience later on. In order to penetrate the market, Oculus needs to concentrate on where the largest market for gamers and game developers is (not of the mobile variety), and that's Windows.

As for others' comments regarding Win10, the tech community is literally salivating over it. It's going to be as big a sea change as when people and businesses moved on from XP to Win7. Especially with the free upgrades from either 7 or 8. Also, the stars have aligned themselves quite favorably for Microsoft in terms of market pricing and product delays of other tech manufacturers. Intel's woeful delay of desktop Broadwell and now upcoming release of Skylake this fall has proved to be quite fortuitous for DIY system builders and gamers. Memory and SSDs prices are falling (you can find regular blowouts of 240 and even 480 GB SSDs).

TLDR; the next year is going to be a glorious time for PC upgrading.

 

[Mclovincr]

Since Windows 8 was released, each new version of Windows has been a reboot, and the OSs image has suffered as a result. OS X is a much more mature platform at this point, so I find it a little perplexing that OS X would be put on pause. We don't yet know how Windows 10 will be received in the marketplace, at the same time that Apple's share is growing, so this move may have been a bit misguided.

Although you are right regarding the maturity of the OS X system. This devices was mainly intended for gaming purposes. The biggest percentage of computer gamers are windows based.

----------

Yup, exactly. Microsoft hasn't lost their corporate service, but they have clearly lost their high end individual buyers: sure low end customers will stick to Windows, but they are going to stay with they current out of date version, until they are forced to buy a new machine.

Gamers may be buying Xbox if they aren't Sony fans, but I doubt they are going to spend much money on Windows 10 software.

You are talking about Microsoft as a hardware vendor. Low end customers? Many gamers expend a ton of money to build their systems and run windows OSs. Windows have the biggest portion of computer games. From my POV this is the best way to go. Rift was intended for the gamers, at least at the beginning. You can use Rift with a $1800 build-from-scratch pc (maybe even less).