NEW YORK, May 16 — Base level components for an Oculus Rift virtual reality setup imply that US$1000’s (RM3562) worth of gaming computer will be needed to power the headset.
The computer hardware requirements were posted alongside a technical explanation on the website of Facebook’s virtual reality company Oculus.
An Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD 290 graphics card, an Intel i5-4590 CPU chip or equivalent, and 8GB of RAM are the recommended components required inside any computer aiming to support an Oculus Rift headset.
PC building website logicalincrements.com estimates the cost of an appropriately self-built gaming computer with a GTX 970 / AMD 290 and i5-4590 to be between US$979 and US$1119, two example builds labelled as “Outstanding” and “Excellent.”
But with Google, LG, Zeiss and even Oculus partner Samsung offering lower cost, lower spec alternatives to smartphone owners, Oculus wants its Rift attainable by non-enthusiasts in due course.
“The recommended spec will stay constant over the lifetime of the Rift,” reasoned Oculus’ Chief Architect, Atman Binstock. “As the equivalent-performance hardware becomes less expensive, more users will have systems capable of the full Rift experience.”
The Rift was subject to a successful US$2.4m Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in late 2012. In the time since, two Developer Kit models have been made available for purchase through Oculus’ website, and another two intermediary set-ups produced for internal and public testing by the company itself.
The device has been used not only as a video game peripheral for those seeking fuller immersion, but also as an engineering and visualization tool in other industry sectors, architecture and automobile manufacture notable among them.
Consumer-grade models are expected to ship in early 2016. — AFP-Relaxnews
