Oculus rift min/recommend requirements?

steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
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Hi Guys,
I was just wondering if anyone knew what the min/recommended requirements for the Oculus rift are? I'm pretty sure I'll be getting one when the consumer version is released (rumoured next summer/autumn) and need to know if I need to save up for more than just the rift.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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The fastest single card that is available on the market at the time.The DK2 rift is 80hz (IIRC) and the target for the retail is higher, presumably 120hz. More than that its trying to target quite high resolutions, 1080p isn't sufficient so they will probably want to go higher for retail (1440p or even beyond). Adding SLI/Xfire will be a problem for getting the absolutely lowest latency so its not really going to be an option for the Rift with specialist support for a game (one frame rendered across both cards) so I suspect a lot of VR enhanced games will work best on one card.
 

steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
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So basically you are going to need a top end single card solution, looks like a 980 or an amd equivalent will be required.

Thanks for the info.
 

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Probably. I think it will all come down to the screen resolution. There are more and more 4k screens being developed/released in the smartphone size. If the refresh rate on them is high enough, you might expect to see those used, but at a minimum I would expect 1440p for each eye, meaning your graphics card will have to handle pushing 2x2,560x1,440, or effectively 5120x1440.
 

gorobei

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Jan 7, 2007
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Probably. I think it will all come down to the screen resolution. There are more and more 4k screens being developed/released in the smartphone size. If the refresh rate on them is high enough, you might expect to see those used, but at a minimum I would expect 1440p for each eye, meaning your graphics card will have to handle pushing 2x2,560x1,440, or effectively 5120x1440.

dk2 is 1920x1080 but split down the middle so each eye gets 960x1080. cv1 will likely be based on the samsung note4 panel so 2560x1440(ie the reason carmack is working on the samsung vr gear latency issues). the limitation of using existing panels is why the fov has been narrowing rather than widening. unless samsung comes out with a custom 21:9 oled or go 6+ inches, cv2 will be equally hampered.

the target framerate will be in the 90+ range which will be more of a problem for people trying to run rift on anything less than a r9-29(5?)/390 or g980.
 

Obsoleet

Platinum Member
Oct 2, 2007
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Hi Guys,
I was just wondering if anyone knew what the min/recommended requirements for the Oculus rift are? I'm pretty sure I'll be getting one when the consumer version is released (rumoured next summer/autumn) and need to know if I need to save up for more than just the rift.

This.
Radeon R9-390X

No doubt about it. Not fast enough for you? I'm sure it'll overclock like a raped ape too.

I've been waiting for the consumer release of OR to build a new rig myself. I've been wondering the same question, and I'm prepared to drop thousands on a new rig. Though it was a bad idea, the most I've spent on video cards in one shot was $850 for dual PCIE 6800GTs (the best idea was my current $380 5870, which was the first card to top my previous favorite buy, the Diamond Monster 3D 4MB).
For Oculus Rift, I'm willing to go to OVER 9,000!!!!!!!!!

Though we'll have another new generation of cards available once it's here.
 
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steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
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I hope you only need one GPU... I don't want to mess around with crossfire/SLI as it seems to me that there are usually problems or long waiting time on drivers for specific games. I don't mind dropping £500-£600 on one GPU for it, but spending £1000+ would be too much for me.
 

davidthemaster3

Senior member
Mar 11, 2011
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dk2 is 1920x1080 but split down the middle so each eye gets 960x1080. cv1 will likely be based on the samsung note4 panel so 2560x1440 unless samsung comes out with a custom 21:9 oled or go 6+ inches, cv2 will be equally hampered.

the target framerate will be in the 90+ range which will be more of a problem for people trying to run rift on anything less than a r9-29(5?)/390 or g980.

DK2 also has a framerate of 75hz.

Oculus has stated that CV1 will have at least 1k x 1k per eye and a target framerate of 90hz, but nothing is really confirmed yet.

They also recommend single GPU options, because SLI/Crossfire adds latency and latency sucks with immersion and sickness in the Rift.

I read that devs at Oculus use 780 ti's. So go with the strongest single GPU option availible.
 

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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dk2 is 1920x1080 but split down the middle so each eye gets 960x1080. cv1 will likely be based on the samsung note4 panel so 2560x1440(ie the reason carmack is working on the samsung vr gear latency issues). the limitation of using existing panels is why the fov has been narrowing rather than widening. unless samsung comes out with a custom 21:9 oled or go 6+ inches, cv2 will be equally hampered.

the target framerate will be in the 90+ range which will be more of a problem for people trying to run rift on anything less than a r9-29(5?)/390 or g980.

Wow... I seriously thought they were using 2 smaller panels that were side to side with the vertical height being the long side of the panel.
 

DiogoDX

Senior member
Oct 11, 2012
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1440p and 90hz would need a beef pc to run a lot of games. By the time maybe will exist a multi GPU solution optmized for VR.
 

Chaoticlusts

Member
Jul 25, 2010
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Wow... I seriously thought they were using 2 smaller panels that were side to side with the vertical height being the long side of the panel.

Nope, they seperate it with lenses and in software but it's a single physical panel. It's actually the exact panel used in the Galaxy Note 3 (including the touch display because apparently it would have cost more without it :p).

http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/news...veals_it_uses_samsung_galaxy_note_3_panel.jpg

On the topic of what's needed to power it, it really depends on usage. Currently all applications that run it natively are pretty low requirement (with the exception of Elite Dangerous) and not everyone can handle playing games where support has been hacked in like say Skyrim (increased simulation sickness).

I'm running a 6950 and it can happily push the 75fps needed for a DK2 on the little apps that are around but in the long run it's obviously going to struggle and frame rate drops can be very unsettling while playing.

As others have stated the consumer release hardware isn't set in stone (well...hasn't been announced at least :p) Davidthemaster3 basically said everything we know for sure about it (minimum 1k per eye and minimum 90hz) and a release date of sometime 2015, likely the holidays but it's all speculation.

Basically if your not planning too grab a DK2 and play with the not so user friendly (it is a developer kit) experience then don't stress about your GPU till the final specs are confirmed and it's about to be released, at the very least you'll get a better bang for your buck then than now. There's always a possibility it could end up delayed to 2016 and any GPU you buy now would be 'outdated' (not the latest model I mean).
 

steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
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Nope, they seperate it with lenses and in software but it's a single physical panel. It's actually the exact panel used in the Galaxy Note 3 (including the touch display because apparently it would have cost more without it :p).

http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/news...veals_it_uses_samsung_galaxy_note_3_panel.jpg

On the topic of what's needed to power it, it really depends on usage. Currently all applications that run it natively are pretty low requirement (with the exception of Elite Dangerous) and not everyone can handle playing games where support has been hacked in like say Skyrim (increased simulation sickness).

I'm running a 6950 and it can happily push the 75fps needed for a DK2 on the little apps that are around but in the long run it's obviously going to struggle and frame rate drops can be very unsettling while playing.

As others have stated the consumer release hardware isn't set in stone (well...hasn't been announced at least :p) Davidthemaster3 basically said everything we know for sure about it (minimum 1k per eye and minimum 90hz) and a release date of sometime 2015, likely the holidays but it's all speculation.

Basically if your not planning too grab a DK2 and play with the not so user friendly (it is a developer kit) experience then don't stress about your GPU till the final specs are confirmed and it's about to be released, at the very least you'll get a better bang for your buck then than now. There's always a possibility it could end up delayed to 2016 and any GPU you buy now would be 'outdated' (not the latest model I mean).

As I said above...I'm not buying now, I just want to have a ballpark figure I need to save up to buy the release version of the rift and have a PC that is capable of running it properly.
 

Chaoticlusts

Member
Jul 25, 2010
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Kk, it's honestly a little hard to say in that case. We don't know the final specs for the Rift and we don't know the price/performance of the next generation of graphics cards. That being said Oculus aren't stupid, they aren't going to release a product that will only run on brand new $700 GPU's. I'd bet you'd be ok running a $200-$300 new card when it launches as long as you don't mind dropping some settings. The other thing to keep in mind is it can be CPU intensive so if you have an ancient CPU you may need to upgrade that too if you wanted smooth 90hz+ gaming (by old I mean pre-Sandy Bridge). But that's all speculation it's really to far off for anyone to say for certain sorry.
 

steve wilson

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
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Kk, it's honestly a little hard to say in that case. We don't know the final specs for the Rift and we don't know the price/performance of the next generation of graphics cards. That being said Oculus aren't stupid, they aren't going to release a product that will only run on brand new $700 GPU's. I'd bet you'd be ok running a $200-$300 new card when it launches as long as you don't mind dropping some settings. The other thing to keep in mind is it can be CPU intensive so if you have an ancient CPU you may need to upgrade that too if you wanted smooth 90hz+ gaming (by old I mean pre-Sandy Bridge). But that's all speculation it's really to far off for anyone to say for certain sorry.

I'm currently running an i5 2500k at 4.3ghz, with a MSI gtx 770. I'm almost certain I will upgrade when Sandy Bridge (k) is released, which hopefully won't be too long after the Oculus Rift is released. I'll try the rift with my current setup and see how it goes I suppose, it might just be able to run it smoothly.