Announced: Oculus Rift consumer version in first quarter of 2016

[Wraith_TMS]

OculusVR has today announced its recommended specs for those wanting to run the Rift at optimal settings.  (   Note, please do not shoot the messenger, this is what they're stating):

“…the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second.”

Recommended PC specifications:

 ♦   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


Source: https://www.oculus.com/blog/the-rifts-recommended-spec-pc-sdk-0-6-released-and-mobile-vr-jam-voting/

Looks like it'll be more than pennies that will need to be saved... 

FWIW,

[Vulcan]

Those spec's are to bad tbh. An i5 8Gb is not that much, and by the time the rift is released the gtx will be way down in price (hell same goes for i7's).

[Bizman]

I find the requirements somewhat high. After all, it's a combination of two monitors and a motion sensor and the monitors aren't even full HiRes. My 7 year old rig can run 2560x1600 @ 60 -ish most of the time, so I suppose 2160x1200 @90 Hz should be within reason. I may be missing something, though, I'm not familiar with video goggles at all.

[zack1234]

What card have you got.? 

[jigsaw]

Yes, I remember many of those VR sets in the late 90s/early 2000s...

I have a Forte VFX with the original box that I keep hoping will become a collectable one of these days.

[Bizman]

What card have you got.? 

It's some second hand crap I traded to a mouse... 

[guncrasher]

I find the requirements somewhat high. After all, it's a combination of two monitors and a motion sensor and the monitors aren't even full HiRes. My 7 year old rig can run 2560x1600 @ 60 -ish most of the time, so I suppose 2160x1200 @90 Hz should be within reason. I may be missing something, though, I'm not familiar with video goggles at all.

more worried that with this high requirements it may suck fps like crazy.


semp

[Vulcan]

I find the requirements somewhat high. After all, it's a combination of two monitors and a motion sensor and the monitors aren't even full HiRes. My 7 year old rig can run 2560x1600 @ 60 -ish most of the time, so I suppose 2160x1200 @90 Hz should be within reason. I may be missing something, though, I'm not familiar with video goggles at all.

Actually no, it's a single monitor which will like need to be 1920+1920 x 1080. So 4k x 1080. It also has more than a motion sensor, apart from the onboard gyros and magnetic sensors there is also a high res camera that tracks IR LEDs on the headset (similar to a TrackIR).

Looking at a screen and saying ohh I get 60fps is one thing.... try moving your view around rapidly and see if your FPS moves. When you wear a headset you become acutely aware of the impact from rapid view changes on fps.

[mthrockmor]

I stumbled onto this story...

http://www.gizmag.com/oculus-rift-specs/37536/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=0244e3ec4b-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-0244e3ec4b-91539061

[Bizman]

Actually no, it's a single monitor which will like need to be 1920+1920 x 1080. So 4k x 1080. It also has more than a motion sensor, apart from the onboard gyros and magnetic sensors there is also a high res camera that tracks IR LEDs on the headset (similar to a TrackIR).

Looking at a screen and saying ohh I get 60fps is one thing.... try moving your view around rapidly and see if your FPS moves. When you wear a headset you become acutely aware of the impact from rapid view changes on fps.

Oh, the resolution is higher than the aforementioned 2160×1200. That makes a huge difference. And I buy your comment about rapid movements adding to the load. Thanks!

As a side note, I came to think that it's better to set the requirements too high than too low, that should increase the number of happy customers.

[Wraith_TMS]

Oh, the resolution is higher than the aforementioned 2160×1200. That makes a huge difference. And I buy your comment about rapid movements adding to the load. Thanks!

As a side note, I came to think that it's better to set the requirements too high than too low, that should increase the number of happy customers.

Gents, the resolution IS 2160x1200 across two screens.  The issue is it's two screens, each at 1080 x 1200.

On the raw rendering costs: a traditional 1080p game at 60Hz requires 124 million shaded pixels per second. In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift’s rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second. This means that by raw rendering costs alone, a VR game will require approximately 3x the GPU power of 1080p rendering.

  --- Atman Binstock, Chief Architect at Oculus and technical director of the Rift.

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

Note that above is directly from OculusVR's website; not a news article or hearsay.

FWIW,

[Vulcan]

Nope.

"The Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift’s rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second."

2160x1200x90=233 million.

He then mentions the 400 million pps. Which would indicate that is 2 x 233 million pps - ie the equivilent of 2 displays for stereo 3d. So who knows.

Key to the Oculus design is the use of a single screen, one of the huge issues for VR headsets has been different brightness/contrast/etc levels between LED and OLDE panels. If it is 2160x1200 then it will definitely be a single panel.

In the end nobody seems to be sure over the final resolution. Guess we'll see when it arrives.

[zack1234]

It's some second hand crap I traded to a mouse... 

 

[Wraith_TMS]

Nope.

"The Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift’s rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second."

2160x1200x90=233 million.

He then mentions the 400 million pps. Which would indicate that is 2 x 233 million pps - ie the equivilent of 2 displays for stereo 3d. So who knows.

Key to the Oculus design is the use of a single screen, one of the huge issues for VR headsets has been different brightness/contrast/etc levels between LED and OLDE panels. If it is 2160x1200 then it will definitely be a single panel.

In the end nobody seems to be sure over the final resolution. Guess we'll see when it arrives.

Incorrect.

Your information may be outdated, since you're using a DK1 or DK2, which do use single displays--and yes, for those it made sense to do so when those were developed.  However, since then, the "Crescent Bay" prototype, upon which the consumer version of the Rift is based (CV1), does have dual displays.  (I don't include my sources to test the URL feature on the forum, guys   ; I include them so you all can confirm that I'm being factual.  Please do follow them and catch up on the latest.)

Sources re: dual displays:

Palmer Luckey/Nate Mitchell (Founders of Oculus) @ SxSW 2015:
https://youtu.be/o3y9a0moHqI?t=18m28s

and:
 
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/13/8212205/oculus-crescent-bay-two-screen-vr-headset-palmer-luckey

http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-confirms-dual-screens-in-crescent-bay-consumer-rift-will-not-be-an-exclusive-platform/

[Vulcan]

Then it does not make sense it would be within spitting distance of the DK2 res ( 1920×1080 ), but all feedback says the CB is way better in res.

Also in your link: "No details on panel specifications of course, but it does mean that the prototype that is thought to bear close resemblance to the eventual consumer version of the Oculus Rift may well opt for this route."

and "Oculus founder Palmer Luckey chimed in as well, saying that it was "super obvious" that the prototype used two screens, but nobody had really looked closely enough before to notice it"

So a single panel would deliver res barely 5% better than the DK2, nobody has confirmed whether the cv1 will be single or dual panel, Palmer states dual panel was super obvious and we know he prefers the single panel option.

We still have at least 6 months before we see a CV1, I know what my money is on.