Posted on 03/04/2016 6:33:23 AM PST by ImJustAnotherOkie
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has poured water on the idea of his Rift virtual reality headset supporting the Mac by saying that Apple doesn't make any computers powerful enough to run it.
"That is up to Apple and if they ever release a good computer we will do it," Luckey tells ShackNews when asked about Mac support. "It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn’t prioritize high-end GPUs. 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 spec."
Apple's high-end Mac Pro computers come with dual discrete GPUs, but they're designed for professional applications rather than gaming. Advanced VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require a gaming-focused graphics processor as capable as an Nvidia GTX 970 or above to meet the manufacturers' recommendations.
"If they prioritize higher-end GPUs like they used to for a while back in the day, we’d love to support Mac," Luckey continued. "But right now, there’s just not a single machine out there that supports it. So even if we can support it on the software side, there's just no audience of people that can run the vast majority of software out there."
Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed an interest in VR, saying on the company's most recent earnings call that "I don't think it's a niche. It's really cool and has some interesting applications." For the foreseeable future, though, Apple's Mac platform won't be able to play host to the most advanced implementations.
Apple is the most profitable company from short changing their customers. The vast majority of computer buyers are easy picking.
This article is wrong.
If they were easy picking the Mac would have a bigger share of the computer market.
Apple was saved by mobile devices. They never dominated the desktop or laptop markets. MS-DOS and then Windows machines have always been a better value for most applications.
Wow. This guy us amazing. So can he tell us what computer builder he builds for? He sounds like his products must be a hidden secret.
Or, he’s a self promoting moron who misses the point of the best way to build a computer most people keep a few short years.
What GPU do you have in your iMac?
This is the best comparison I could find between Apple’s 27” Imac with a AMD Radeon R9 M395 with 2GB and the mentioned Nvidia GTX 970. The comparison only allows using the AMD chipset with 4GB of RAM. I don’t know what that changes. The comparison seems to show that the Nvidia is capable of higher resolution.
iMac since 2011.
Still bullet proof.
They’re not doing it for the same reason developers hardly ever port high end games to mac, most gamers who would drop this much money on a device don’t use macs.
Now I’ve never played with a firegl card, I know it’s not typically used for gaming but (as we gamers ask) can it run Crysis?
The only flaws in your arguments are what Apple charges for their equipment. Apple has a lock on all their hardware so their OS can work. They remind me of the Old AT&T.
Apple charges above top tier prices for 2nd tier equipment right now. A perfect example is the Dell XPS vs. Macbook Pro. When Apple announces their new products this month, they will be at best “Me Too”.
My iPad Pro is blazing fast on graphics. I can run 15 apps plus Asphalt 8 and it won’t lose a single frame
What GPU do you have in your iMac?AMD Radeon R9 M395.
Oculus says the requirement is: "NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater".
Admittedly, I don't really care about graphics cards, but I'm assuming my M395 is higher-end than the required 290.
If I'm wrong about that, I apologize.
It runs on the iTV and Amazon Fire too. IOS is a pretty lightweight OS.
You are. The “M” on the front of 395 means “mobile.”
The R9 290 is not a mobile card - it’s a desktop card (otherwise it would have an “M” in front of it too). And it’s significantly higher end than the mobile version.
They’re not doing it for the same reason developers hardly ever port high end games to mac, most gamers who would drop this much money on a device don’t use macs.And I would have no trouble if he had said that they don't support Macs because their audience doesn't use Macs. I admit that I don't play computer games, so I don't care whether their hardware works with my system or not.
FYI, you’re comparing two mobile cards - the M395 to the M970. The 970 card mentioned in the article is not the mobile version, it’s the desktop version (without the “M”).
Here’s the real comparison:
This article is wrong.
If that's true, then it's going to provoke the question of why he'd want to limit the available market for his own product.
Understand that VR has some very obscure critical requirements which are very easy to not implement in an otherwise very impressive video system. #1: “movement to photons” time must be under 20ms, hard to achieve when pushing a half billion shaded pixels per second. Most cards implement a buffer which eats most of or all that time, and which most applications would never notice.
I’m not much of a guru on gpu card comparisons - just thought I’d throw it in as a conversation piece. But still see resolution as the block, or maybe it is just the driver Apple uses. Don’t know doesn’t effect me - other than it is not political news ...
Probably because Mac market share is just over 6%, While Windows is over 88%.
Palmer isn’t wrong. The new iMac GPU does not provide performance anywhere in league with an nVidia GTX 970, nor can it power an Oculus Rift CV1. And have you even tried the Oculus? It’s not a toy. I own the Oculus Rift DK2 prototype and it’s absolutely mind blowing. Easily the most incredible tech I’ve seen in the past 10 years, and I have the commercial unit on pre-order.
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