Powering the Rift | Hacker News Reader

Powering the Rift

oculus.com

71 pointsImpossible65 comments

There'll be a lot of negative feedback from OSX and Linux developers.

No surprises here for me though. After struggling to get DK2 and Unreal Engine on my Macbook Air running smoothly, I bit the bullet and bought a Windows gaming box just for the Rift.

Considering that I bought my current Macbook for iOS development in the process replacing my Samsung laptop running Ubuntu, this makes sense - platforms are just tools to get things done.

If budget does not allow all 3 of them, then choose whatever system makes most business sense for you. This should not be an emotional decision.

> There'll be a lot of negative feedback from OSX and Linux developers.

There already was; the Rift SDK license is one of the most hostile I've seen in a long time, and utterly incompatible with Open Source.

I don't think they will even receive any feedback at all: people will just buy Valve's Vive this year and completely forget about the Rift...

That may be easier said than done, given that FB has already invested $2 billion in making Oculus happen, and have openly set their sites on getting a billion users into VR within a decade.

Valve has a user base and a plan. I'm really curious for the future of Rift vs Vive.

I'm still surprised how many people are mad about the OSX ditch. They think they need a high-end gaming video card, which Apple doesn't support. Apple has never cared about making Macs machines that play games. Why would you want to be on a platform that doesn't care about what you want to do on it?

I think most people are upset because (like me) I was developing away on my MacBook Pro with the DK2 and it runs excellently. There has never been any talk in the past that support would be halted.

I was just hacking for fun, but a bunch of people are already in the middle of creating products and games and have a lot invested. The anger comes from the about-face, coupled with a loss in time/money investment.

Seems like reasonable thing to be mad about - I'm surprised you're surprised by it.

Eh, not so much. As a dev kit user, you should be aware that (a) the DK2 a far cry from Crescent Bay, which is much closer to what Oculus plans to go to market with and (b) that a display of Crescent Bay's caliber needs a lot more power than what's in an average MBP to offer a proper experience of Presence.

Seriously, if you didn't see a high-powered spec coming, you may want to reconsider your ambitions as a VR dev. If a current Mac Pro could accommodate a Nvidia 970/80, expecting Apple support would be one thing. But in the absence of a system that can support cards like these, what were people expecting?

I mean, Oculus has said over and over (and over and over) that their biggest fear is re-launching VR with a less-than-mindblowing level of quality and getting a negative to lukewarm response as a result. "Conversion on contact" is what they say they're after.

Your MBP + DK2 may offer a fun and easy way to familiarize yourself with the platform, but it's nowhere close to what's called for by the experience they've been promising to bring to market.

The good news is that they're saying the setup they've specified - though currently quite expensive - isn't going to change anytime during the life of the product. In other words, the only thing that will change is the price of this setup, which should be considerably lower by the time sets start shipping in 1Q16, and sales really get going later in the year.

Yeah that does seem annoying, but if you are only targeting one of those platforms the likely hood that you would succeed is super small. I'm not just talking about Occulas when I talk about being on a platform that doesn't care. I'm also talking about the game developers, unless you are making an iOS game I don't see why you would ever want to develop for or play games on a Mac.

Then why not support Linux? Apple devs are used to working around esoteric hardware requirements, they're upset about not getting software support.

Regardless of Oculus's sensible reasons for pursuing a one-platform strategy, you're talking about independent devs who have spent months or years building on a beta SDK only to be left hanging in the final runup to release. I'm confused why you're surprised.

I'm guessing Linux will be a very small % of the overall Rift demographic. It might not make sense for them to spend resources on supporting 1% (NB: random guesstimate) of the user base just yet, although I'm sure that'll happen eventually.

To be clear, that was a rhetorical question :) My point is just that "underpowered GPUs" is not the reason OS X is getting dropped[], focus on a single platform is.

[] If you're still not convinced, let me point out that Oculus supports Android with a separate SDK.

Isn't the Oculus Android SDK just for the Samsung Gear?

Yeah, it's a separate technology stack, with its own dev team, not directly comparable to the Rift SDK. But that's a bit of a red herring, since the Galaxy S6 at 1440p is actually pushing more pixels to the display than the Rift, per frame. (But at a lower framerate, of course.)

And John Carmack is working on it, and he probably doesn't care as much about OS X. Again, my point is that the constraint here is not the GPU, but Oculus engineering resources.

Also let's not forget there are something like 300mil Android devices out there, whereas Linux is around 1% of desktop user base: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system... It absolutely makes sense for them to focus on Android (regardless of their partnership with Samsung)

I can only say that you've definitely found one here. I'll be moving fully to xubuntu once my windows 7 box goes EOL. I'm not willing to invest in what will surely be an ~ecosystem~ when I know it does not fit my long term plans.

I guess because I don't know a single game developer that actually likes making games on Linux. I like linux, I use it for server and web programming, but it is god awful to try and make games on.

The Mac Pro does in fact have a good enough graphics card. But that market is so small I guess they feel it's not worth it.

Kinda. It's OK for simpler stuff such as Windlands, but a "flagship" game like Elite: Dangerous isn't really pleasant to play. This is from my experience using a top of the line Mac Pro booting windows 8.1.

Serious question: Did you mean to say "MacBook Pro"? Or are the dual GPUs in the Mac Pro severely overpriced?

(I don't keep up with the advances in graphics cards)

I really did mean the Mac Pro! I've also done VR on a MacBook Pro and that's obviously much worse even than the Mac Pro.

VR doesn't work well with SLI right now, many people end up disabling all but one GPU in a multi GPU setup.

The GPUs in the Mac pro aren't strictly optimized for putting triangles on the screen.

What'll be interesting is the state of VR in a couple of years. The current system of consoles will still be well within their lifespan, but unable to handle complex VR. The current specs will be considered entry level, making desktops the best place for this style of gaming. The "Rift" is well named, since we may well see a split become couch gamers and immersion gamers.

Interesting that you noted "desktops."

I used to be a big gamer when I was younger and went through a phase of having two "gaming laptops" (really more portable desktops...those things could fry your nuts if you put it on your lap). I now have a massive Origin desktop box that weighs ~100lbs and is an absolute beast. However as I get older, I'm realizing that I'd rather have that square footage for other home things and instead switch to a gaming laptop since they are much nicer and smaller now.

I wonder if gaming laptops of the near future will be able to sufficiently handle VR systems like the Rift. Having a truly portable VR experience like that is a very different scenario than being bound to sitting at a desk.

Sure it might be clunky at first, but you can technically strap the laptop to a harness of some sort and have mobile VR. You can't do that with a desktop.

I'm very supportive of Oculus deciding to focus on one platform. Though I'm a Mac and Linux user, I want Oculus to be a success, and deciding to say "no" to non-dominant options maximizes that chance.

Relatedly, can anyone give an estimate about how many years behind integrated graphics chips like Intel's are from Rift-compatible performance?

Lets do some basic math to get some clue of the future. I welcome others to provide more detailed analysis to adjust my calculations.

The nVidia GTX 970 has 3494 GFLOPS[1] of single precision processing power. The strongest currently available Intel integrated GPU (Intel Iris Pro Graphics P6300, GT3e) seems to have around 1000 GFLOPS[2] and is from November 2013. The September 2012 Intel Iris Pro 5200 has 832 GFLOPS[3], and the April 2012 Intel HD Graphics 4000 has 333 GFLOPS[4]. The pace of improvement seems to have slowed down for Intel. Given a generous 25% YoY growth, Intel will have a 3500 GFLOPS integrated GPU somewhere around 2020. There is high demand for mobile performance though, so with additional investments, perhaps a 33% YoY growth for performance-per-watt can be achieved? Then a 3500 GFLOPs integrated GPU could arrive as soon as end of 2018.

Even so, if VR is even mildly successful, I can imagine nVidia & AMD pumping out even bigger behemoths than the currently available 6144 GFLOPS[1] nVidia GTX Titan X. These giants will also receive annual performance gains, so the gap between heavily cooled desktop beasts and cool mobile parts will probably remain similar.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_900_series#GeForce_900_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HD_and_Iris_Graphics#Broa...

[3] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graph...

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HD_and_Iris_Graphics#Ivy_...

Super helpful, thanks.

Slightly off topic: I didn't realize how excited the graphics card makers must be over VR until reading this post. If VR catches on for mainstream use (not just games), that'd be a huge boon to the industry.

AMD already made a bunch of slides announcing the new GPU line to be VR dedicated

The Titan X with 12gb of VRAM is just the beginning...

For those complaining about the lack of OS X and Linux support for now:

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

95.81% of Steam users are on Windows. If anything I suspect this understates the number of Steam users who have Windows -- I suspect some of the Linux and OS X users dual-boot. And I am sure it definitely underestimates the amount of Windows installs among people who have the horsepower to support the specs they're quoting; there's almost no laptops that support the Rift, which means the only thing in Apple's lineup that supports this is the narrow market segment of people who own the Darth Vader Trash Can and use it as a gaming machine, and I guess Hackintosh owners.

Resources are not infinite. Every dollar/man-hour/etc. spent on Linux and OS X support are resources not spent on something else. If there was a more competitive market for high-end PC gaming OSes it might make more sense to spend those resources there. But there isn't.

> I suspect some of the Linux and OS X users dual-boot.

Hard to tell: how many install Steam under their dual-booting (or dedicated game machine) Windows and don't bother to install it under alt-OS as their games mostly don't run on it because the developer didn't bother supporting it?

> there's almost no laptops that support the Rift / the narrow market segment of people who own the Darth Vader Trash Can

Given the requirements, be realistic, there's not much PC either. It doesn't matter, as this is a nascent market. It also seems that everyone assumes that the games run must be of the Crysis or whatever the latest heavy-duty shiny AAA thing is. Hearing you all, I wonder how I even can possibly be enjoying gaming on my HD4000† under OSX. Turns out I do, and this is what infuriates me about those requirements. I do understand the requirements about latency and real-time scheduling constraints, yet I am convinced we can build innovative, great VR things satisfying those constraints even on "reduced" hardware.

† yes, games can be fun without SSAO, DOF, or even real-time soft shadows.

> the only thing in Apple's lineup that supports this is the narrow market segment of people who own the Darth Vader Trash Can

Not even that, I think.

If the support for dual-GPU VR in AMD's LiquidVR works as well as it's supposed to then the Mac Pros (or at least some of them) should in principle be good enough, but of course that support would have to make it to OS X first.

Windows requirement in 2016?

Seriously?

It looks like 1996 with companies working for free for Microsoft and doing things like Windows only modems.

I was going to buy a Rift, now this will force me to buy a Steam machine with the VR set of Valve.

As someone who prefers to use Linux as much as possible and has a DK2, it's disappointing to me, but it makes a lot of sense.

If I was told to develop an extremely high performance, low error rendering pipeline for such a product, you can bet I'd focus where the largest number of users are (PC gamers) and just try to build as robust an API as I could with eventual porting to Linux/Mac in mind. (E.x. As linux applications and mac hardware caught up.)

Windows is still the dominant operating system for non console gaming. It really shouldn't be a surprise that's what they would target.

So, based on your presumably vast experience in soft-real-time systems, 3D graphics programming, cross-platform development, and virtual reality UX, what do you propose is the alternative?

Hint: the reason they're probably looking at Windows--and that you are looking at Steam machines--is that there is a much more controllable environment for deployment. Having to deal with all the crazy of, say, X11 and OpenGL and nutzo drivers and everything when you really just want to install a super-low-latency path for your system is just a fool's errand.

Just to jump in here too, Bill Gates and Windows appealed to games and being the platform to support them in the 90s when Carmack and Doom were pushing things forward back then too.

Currently reading Masters of Doom and it's really good in case people are interested.

Here's the Promo video shown at a Microsoft event back then (cringe warning): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dVAhFYjp9c

Windows was founded on nutzo drivers. That's why they're specifying the environment so carefully.

It's surprising to me that Facebook didn't use its financial muscle to sidestep this issue and release a sort of "console" alongside the Rift that is heavily tuned for this particular purpose.

I suppose this will happen eventually, and that the first "Rift" is still intended as an "enthusiast" product with a more seamless, mainstream-oriented product to follow.

It'll be interesting to see how the Linux & Mac communities react to this, considering their line about concentrating on Windows for the moment. No ETA for Linux/Mac development restarting.

They're suggesting an Nvidia GTX 970 for a good experience. I'd wager very few Macs have a GPU of that power right now.

The big sellers are the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBooks Air, all of which run Intel integrated graphics. And iMacs have mobile GPUs. Besides the cylinder Mac Pros, and older Mac Pros with new cards shoved in them, the entire line is short on GPU punch.

I'm pretty sure GTX 970+ cuts out everything that's not a hackintosh, even the workstation cards in the current Mac Pro.

Well, if Apple would spend less time crafting delightful metal bracelets, they could pop in a Haswell CPU and a contemporary GPU into the current Mac Pro.

(Sorry. Bitter, Hackintosh-using "power user" rant.)

I've run Elite: Dangerous on a top of the line Mac Pro (Windows 8.1 bootcamp), it's not great.

That said, simpler games with a focus on gameplay instead of graphics work just fine, such as Windlands. I'd suspect Job Simulator would be similar.

If there is truly a difference in the level of support from Oculus, expect to see Valve/HTC be very embracing of Linux/Mac and have yet another advantage over the Rift.

400 megapixels/s filtrate requirement is a low end spec. Seriously, this is weaker than current game consoles. it's not high end at all compared to what enthusiasts build on.

A GTX 970 / AMD 290 is far more powerful than current consoles too, so there is probably more to it than that.

It's sad to see them scaling back on development support for Linux, though it makes a great deal of sense given how disorganized the ecosystem is.

Hmm. I recently upgraded to a GTX 960, and I wonder if it will have enough horsepower. It's a cool, power sipping card for the performance it puts out, but I would wager that many of the techniques used to get those benefits will not take well to the specific demands of those dual screens. Then again, these are "recommended" specs, not required.

Do you have the 2GB or 4GB card? In general, you can get by fine just turning down some effects. But VRAM usage tends to scale with resolution, and the Rift's >HD render target will probably put the squeeze on a 2GB card.

Even with a 4GB 960, you might run into memory bandwidth issues, but without running the software I'm just speculating.

I have SLI 670s which is around the performance of a 970. with graphics cards there can be a variety configs to get to about the same performance.

Right now there are issues with SLI and VR though, there's information about this available online, particularly on the oculus subreddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/) if you search. Current best advice, use a single card, with SLI YMMV.

The higher model number doesn't necessarily mean a more powerful GPU. I have a GTX 680 which competes strongly with many of the GTX 900s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_900_series

I was a very dedicated supporter of VR from 2012 to 2014. Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that VR will flounder, especially in the coveted "seated experience" category. When the DK2s began to land on the doorsteps of developers and fans, feedback began to pour into the forums. There are two kinds of people: there are people who do not get simulator sickness and those who do. After reading the feedback and stories regarding the DK2 I realized simulator sickness was a much larger problem that I thought, and that it wasn't going to disappear with better tracking, pixel density and refresh rate. Some people simply cannot tolerate VR, and I doubt that even the CV1 will be able to change that. But these are only the people at the extreme end of the spectrum, there are many others who straddle the boundary between being sick immediately and never feeling sick at all. The problem for people on the fence is that lateral movement in the game world is a major trigger for nausea. If your virtual body accelerates from standing to running, your real body expects to feel a sensation of acceleration. What this means is that if you move around too much you get sick. And for people who don't feel sick as soon as they put the head set on, movement is often the tipping point. This is a huge problem because there is no way to simulate that kind of sensation (within practical limits) and almost all of the VR experiences that people want to engage in involve moving around in some way.

This conclusion is based solely on rational observations, and it was arrived at in spite of huge optimism and engagement with VR and the VR community.

Simulator sickness is solved? All you need is 1to1 tracking. Of course this means a whole genre of games is impossible (first person action) but every other genre would work fantastically (and I hate FPS anyway). I'm pretty satisfied with it. There really isn't any sickness problem anymore.

Would a lower spec card in SLI / Crossfire work? Like 2 AMD 280Xs instead of an AMD 290

It might "work" in the sense that it might not make you ill, but it's very unlikely that Oculus will support it any time soon. They're focusing on pushing the boundary for rendering latency, which current multi-GPU solutions don't handle well.

There are issues with SLI and VR. It works for some people, for others they need to disable all but one card. There's details on the oculus subreddit if you want to search for it.

I can get the video card requirements. The system RAM, not so much.

Yeah, the system RAM requirement does seem a bit low. I mean 8 GB currently is basically just saying 'No you can't hook this up to that laptop which was designed for the day to day use of an average web surfing, Netflix watching, and video chatting individual.' I mean it should be basically a non-requirement for people working in computer graphics or interested in this for gaming.

It's the recommended spec, not a requirement. And they're just following the industry. The bang-for-buck point for gaming PCs has been 8GB for a while now: The price difference is not great, and while some modern games won't use more than 4 gigs, some will. It's nice to have.

Possibly to prevent paging or swapping that might introduce hitches in performance. Noisy neighbors chugging my VR process would be annoying.

I'm glad they ditched OSX and Linux to focus on Windows.

OSX and Linux are not serious gaming machines. It makes sense to improve the 95% of users gaming on windows machines and sacrifice the 5% who are simply complaining that their manufacturers/vendors won't support their gaming needs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com