Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Tells Apple To ‘Release A Good Computer’ To Gain Rift Support
Now, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is shooting down any possible chance of the Rift coming to Macs in the future. In a recent interview, Luckey made to perfectly clear that most Mac hardware is incapable of handling Oculus virtual reality hardware. When asked if Mac support was ever coming, Luckey responded, “That’s up to Apple. If they ever release a good computer, we’ll do it.”
Yikes, that was harsh. But Luckey goes on to qualify his statement, adding, “It just boils own to the fact that Apple doesn’t prioritize high-end GPUs.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey
“You can buy a $6,000 Mac Pro with the top-of-the-line AMD FirePro D700 and it still doesn’t match our recommended specs. If they prioritize their higher-end GPUs, like the used to for a while back in the day, [then] we’d love to support Mac. But right now, there’s just not a single machine out there that supports it.”
Here are the recommended specs for the Oculus Rift:
- 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
Most the of Macs sold these days come with integrated Intel graphics solutions. It’s often not until you get into the higher configurations that you start seeing dedicated GPUs offered to customers. For example, the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro doesn’t even offer the option of a dedicated GPU. On the desktop side, you can’t get a 21.5-inch iMac with a dedicated GPU, while the 27-inch iMac, which starts at $1,799, offers you Radeon R9 380, 390 or 395 depending on how much you’re willing to spend.
So HotHardware readers, do you agree with Luckey? Has Apple dropped the ball with regards to providing its machines with powerful GPUs or does the company simply have a better pulse on what its customers actually desire in a computer (which more often than not comes with an Intel GPU)?
