Oculus has settled on some beefy PC specs that they reckon will sustain the Rift’s games and applications throughout the device’s lifetime. A “lifetime” for hardware like this could be quite a few years, so the “recommended” specs are a pretty damn powerful PC (especially on the GPU front.)
Here’s what they’re listing.
- 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.
The latter three things are non-negotiable. You need them to run the Oculus Rift. The GPU, Processor and RAM are more like guidelines.
People with dev kit versions of the Rift are currently using it on lower spec hardware, but what Oculus is presumably saying here is that if you have a mega-computer like the one listed, you should be set for however long the first consumer version of the Rift sticks around.
As the months and years go by, the above specs will be neither as expensive or as demanding.
“The goal is for all Rift games and applications to deliver a great experience on this configuration by default,” Oculus’ Atman Binstock writes in a blog piece called ‘Powering the Rift,’ “We believe this “it just works” experience will be fundamental to VR’s success, given that an underperforming system will fail to deliver comfortable presence.”
The full piece is worth a read if you want to understand the company’s reasoning behind the specs.
