Oculus dropping Mac support?

Just got the latest email from Oculus detailing required specs:

For the full Rift experience, we recommend the following system:

• NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
• Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
• 8GB+ RAM
• Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• Windows 7 SP1 or newer

I've heard rumors that they may be dropping support for Mac entirely, and this email doesn't do anything to stop them.

Anyone know any inside info?

 

That would be really weird.

 

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

--Eric

 

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/15/oculus-rift-development-os-x/

Yep. No mac.

That's kind of dumb, in my opinion. I have a mac and I don't plan on ever getting a PC or using windows on my mac (which itself may not be supported).

I'm sure they have their reasons, but seems to me that the computers are all pretty much using the same internals.

Ok, fine. I'm annoyed by this, and so is my DK2 and all the projects I've been working on including the game I have up to get green lit on steam.

 

I came here to check for the availability of the official unity5 support for the rift. Instead I'm now reading this. WTF? I'm really disappointed... I'm using the rift as an architect, and architects are traditionally mostly working on osx, at least in my country.

Still, any word on unity5 support? I couldn't find any specific information...

 

Yeah, it's really a shame. I think because ewe can boot camp windows they may be figuring we'll be OK. But honestly -- Facebook has money. They should just hire some more people to make it work.

 

It is unfortunate - I think the core problem is that most of the new macs utilize integrated gpu which simply does not have the power to drive the rift.

Even the new 5k iMac I just bought has a mobile gpu.

The reason the rift needs a fast gpu is because there will be effectively a separate screen for each eye, and the close proximity makes it very susceptible to latency and needs a really high 75mhz + refresh rate.

Thus, you must have a powerful gpu, and Apple simply does not have any machines other than the Mac Pro which can drive the rift adequately.

I love my mac... but I do almost all my Unity/Unreal work on PC because the GPU is so much faster (well and because Visual Studio is so much better than Mono...)

The current Rift experience on mac is so much worse than rift on PC.

Wish Apple would release machines with current GPU :-(

But frankly, I do not think that will ever happen. A big GPU needs more power and cooling - and this wont fit in cool small form factor. It wont look cool - most people wont buy an ugly mac....

 

It seems to make sense with the hardware requirements.

 

To be honest, I think Apple is kind of losing. They kind of converted themselves from "maker of the most awesome computers" to "makes of phones and watches". And they really messed up iTunes big time ... and others, too.

I still love my iMac - but I'll get a Windows machine for primary development. Very sad!

 

It is true that consumer macs tend to have a mobile GPU, but both the Macbook Pro and the Mac Pro have good dedicated GPUs. So while it is true that most people that will use the rift for gaming will have a PC, this is absolutely not true for a whole lot of other applications (architecture being just one of them).

 

Function over form.

 

Its a good idea to focus on getting the pc working as good as possible and adding mac and eventual linux support later.

 

Guys, just to clear up some confusion.
Oculus VR has temporarily stopped developing for Linux and Mac, so they can focus their efforts on Windows.

The following statement will probably get some Apple fans up in arms, but they could even drop Mac support completely and it wouldn't matter.

Why? Because even the most powerful consumer devices from Apple don't meet the minimum specs by a long shot. Even their 4000$ Mac Pro doesn't, because - as it stands - multi-GPU setups make no sense for VR and if you can only use one in this Mac Pro, it's also outperformed by a GTX 970.

Buying an Apple for core gaming, is your own fault.

I for one, will get a Vive instead of a Rift from the looks of it. The same specs, but with Linux support (don't care about Macs for the reasons given above) and apparently better tracking.

 

The one to blame here is Apple. Over the years they stopped caring about artists/designers/developers and switched their whole production to "Let's make everything as small and slim as possible" which means even their Pro line has mobile GPU's. Apple has never cared about gaming and I have used Macs for the past 20 years. A little over a year ago I switched to a self build Windows machine due to needing some horsepower and flexibility. I am happy I made the move as I am a total sucker for VR (always have been) and I do a lot of prototyping/testing using the Oculus Rift.

I think Apple has to really do some rethinking ... but then again, I don't think they care.

 

In my head I wonder if Oculus has been having discussions w/ Apple and (for whatever reason) apple wasn't budging, so they decided to make it public, as a little push to Apple.

Perhaps Apple has their own thing in the works.

Or, and I think this is most likely, Apple doesn't believe the VR market is really something to worry about yet. And they're probably right -- it'll be small for a while, and the players right now will need to figure a lot of things out. Standards (hopefully so we don't have to make 3 builds for 3 VR players!) and all that.

By the time it's a mature market, which is when Apple usually likes to come in, they'll either have much better GPUs in the slim computers or they'll be ready to release their own Oculus-killer AR device.

 

I really dont cat about support on apple.

 

Other people do, though. So that remark was useless.

Last I heard, Unity has weekly meetings with Apple, so it's not true that Apple doesn't care about gaming. It's not their #1 priority, of course. Eventually even mobile GPUs will be enough for the Rift, though; e.g., look how far the GPUs in iDevices have advanced since the iPhone 1...orders of magnitude.

--Eric

 

Yep. If the next iOS devices have 2gb of ram as rumored, and with Metal being a huge increase (my RPG increased in frame rate by maybe 30% or more on all devices once the Unity version that used Metal worked), gaming on iOS devices is certainly going to get better and better. Mobile VR may actually be a neat thing, and Apple is still the big bread winner for mobile app developers.

I'm just annoyed by it all because I use macs and won't be the one to switch for VR [Double annoyed now because the Oculus Connect convention, which I went to last year, crosses with the Unity Unite in Boston, which I'm going to this year...can't do both I guess!]

 

The thing is: Apple has become a ridiculous watch-manufacturer. Well, ok, they're still primarily phone manufacturers but I guess it's just a question of time until Apple becomes the new Swatch.

I converted from Windows to Mac (after converting from C64 to Amiga and from Amiga to Windows) in 2007 so I that could use Unity.

But it's becoming increasingly painful to use Mac - to the point of the Mac simply becoming a dead platform for game developers. Or a platform for masochists. But certainly not a platform for people who want to work productively creating VR experiences.

It's ridiculous:

The SteamVR integration for Unity doesn't work on Mac OS (Windows only). Eventually they may support Mac ... or not ... we'll see. The SteamVR integration for Unity is totally awesome - but only if you're using a Windows machine for development.

Try to make Razor/Sixense Hydra and Unity on Mac work together. So - in the editor, it doesn't work at all. But you can do 32-bit standalone builds that will work. But now here comes the fun:

Unity 5.1 does have VR integration (which is also quite awesome) - BUT it only works for 64bit builds ATM. So ... I can either make a build where VR works, or a build where the Hydra works.

Very funny.

On Thursday, I installed all that stuff on Bootcamp on my iMac, and guess what: It's easy. It just works. Everything! Without any issues! SteamVR, Oculus, Hydra. It's a pleasure. Windows 8.1 rocks.

Unfortunately, right now I'm sitting at Shayla VR Jam with my MacBook Pro that does not have Windows installed and I'm basically wasting my time fighting technology instead of developing a cool VR experience. If I had wanted to fight technology, I would have installed Linux. But I didn't expect this to be a "typical Mac user experience".

So first thing I'll do when I get home is get a Windows machine for development and before I'll be travelling the next time, I'll get myself a Windows notebook. As of these days, Mac apparently is for consumers - not for producers (this had been showing for a long time in how they treated the Mac Pro).

I'll keep the Mac for spare time stuff. Browsing the Internet and doing Email. You know, that's what they apparently care for.

When you talk to them the next time: Kick them for messing up their own platform.

 

The problem is that developers need powerful machines now and not in 3-5 years. Sure mobile GPU's will be powerful enough one day but developers want to develop now as the train is rolling towards release of Oculus Rift and Vive near the end of the year.

I am with @jashan and as stated, I have switched to the windows platform over a year ago. I have waited and waited all these years for Apple to give us a Mac Pro or something worth purchasing that actually has horsepower and is upgradable/flexible. It didn't happen. I am tired of waiting and therefore I have moved on. I personally know quite a few who are tired of much the same.

Making games is business. Depending on Apple to do business is costing devs time and money. Personally I don't want to be stuck in that position any longer. Happy to be on the Windows side now. (Never thought I'd say that). Well, I did love OSX ...


Thomas

 

Remember that this affects Linux as well, and Linux runs on the same hardware as Windows. I'm not sure it's only about specs; after all you can always lower the settings. (Which the majority of PC gamers will also have to do for now, since relatively few people have the recommended hardware at this point. Note that they themselves say: "The recommended spec will stay constant over the lifetime of the Rift. As the equivalent-performance hardware becomes less expensive, more users will have systems capable of the full Rift experience.") On the plus side, perhaps the 90Hz requirement will finally get people to stop with the "the human eye can't see more than 30fps" nonsense.

--Eric

 

I'm pretty sure at times I only see about 5 fps.

 

Yes, but we're talking about what happens when sober.

--Eric

 

That's a shame, I was going to get a new Mac soon, but might just move back to PC's again, Apple are sacrificing to much function for form now.