Oculus Rift headset plus new PC price to total around $1,500

[HEXUS]

The Oculus CEO didn't want to simply put a price on the headset during an interview.

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[Ttaskmaster]

Hopefully that recommended spec is the seriously high end side and the thing will still work great in, say, 1440p with the GTX780 on an i5 3570K... otherwise the whole thing is just a pointless rich kid's toy for a niche market.
I'm still surprised by how many gamers on Steam are playing on Core2 Duo rigs!

$500 is about £500 in the current market too, so that's me out. If a peripheral costs more than my graphics card, it's likely really not worth it!

[shaithis]

Hmmm. maybe I should hunt out a DK2 for £300 then.......

If they do not want to commit on price and are trying to obfuscate it behind the larger cost of a PC, I think it's going to be costly at release (£500-600 would be my guess now).

This could have been a very bad PR move, the speculation is now going to be rife and will give competitors a chance to get their foot in the door even though until now the Rift was the only device most people had heard of.

[cheesemp]

Wonder if my i5-3570 is close enough to the i5-4590 to work with a bit of tweaking/OC? (Not that my GPU is anywhere close enough )

[shaithis]

Hopefully that recommended spec is the seriously high end side and the thing will still work great in, say, 1440p with the GTX780 on an i5 3570K... otherwise the whole thing is just a pointless rich kid's toy for a niche market.

I haven't kept up on how optimised their software is but because it's stereoscopic it will need to render every scene from 2 slightly different angles. This can have an effect of ~40-100% overhead on the GPU. This is why I am wondering how they are going to make VR work with an acceptable level of detail on the new consoles.......

[Brian224]

I wouldn't risk one until the Valve headset is on the market for comparison, by which time the price, hardware requirements (real not minimum) and game compatibility should all be known.

[Jonj1611]

Just sold a DK2 as well, nevermind. I thought from what I read just the other week that the headset was going to be in the £150 range.

Having owned a DK2 those specs seem well over the top, I didn't have any problems running any games, had no slowdowns etc and that was on a 7950 and i5 2500k

[LSG501]

pc and oculus for $1500... that's CEO speak for $500 for the pc and $1000 for the oculus rift then

[cptwhite_uk]

Wonder if my i5-3570 is close enough to the i5-4590 to work with a bit of tweaking/OC? (Not that my GPU is anywhere close enough )

I would say yes, especially if it's overclocked a little.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i...-Core-i5-3570K

[cps1974]

so that's £2000 (GBP), great !

[Defiant]

£500...

Hell no

[Hicks12]

Don't understand how people have forgotten the pricing of the dk2, please don't just assume UK will get screwed as usual.

Dk2 was $350 + taxes + $35 shipping so all that you paid on top of the US price was simply tax so I don't see why people are potentially crying over this lol. It's already been said they're aiming for $300 - $400... Where has this $500 come from?

@jonj1611 the specs aren't over the top, I also have a 7950 but it does not get 75fps in most games! To have any real eye candy you see the minimum fps tumble, maybe some basic demos it is okay but mainstream content it's pushing it, the consumer version is running at 90fps which is even higher let alone the fact that the display has gone from displaying 2 million pixels to 2.6 million pixels and they expect to keep this recommended spec for a long while... It's easy to see how these are not really over the top anymore .


People seem to think VR should run on the lowest hardware and be cheap, the oculus rift will be less expensive than a brand new 27inch 4k monitor yet it's a completely different beast, I have tried out virtual cinema on my dk2 and it is surprisingly epic and the scale makes it feel like a real cinema which no home TV screen can manage for $350!
What do you need to run 4k? Pretty much their recommended specs and that's just getting started so I think it's fair for version 1.0(consumer version!). Give it a couple more versions and gpu power should have improved greatly so VR can become the norm like 1080p monitors

[smilertoo]

If it's going to cost more than £300 they cant admit it until they know if it leaves space between Rift and Vive, since Vive will be on sale first; They could drive early adopters to the steam system if the price difference is worth having it sooner.

[Ttaskmaster]

I haven't kept up on how optimised their software is but because it's stereoscopic it will need to render every scene from 2 slightly different angles. This can have an effect of ~40-100% overhead on the GPU. This is why I am wondering how they are going to make VR work with an acceptable level of detail on the new consoles.......

My GPU can happily output to up to four monitors apparently (not that I can afford that many), so it shouldn't be that much of a strain.

please don't just assume UK will get screwed as usual.

I dunno. It's a pretty safe assumption these days...

People seem to think VR should run on the lowest hardware and be cheap,

It should probably run on average spec hardware, or perhaps just above it, otherwise the vast majority of people won't buy it and they're limiting themselves to the enthusiast group.
I'd likely still buy one at the expected £500-odd, but I'd have to save up for a while. The only reason I'd be doing so is because PCs and gaming is one of my primary hobbies these days.

Give it a couple more versions and gpu power should have improved greatly so VR can become the norm like 1080p monitors

In the current climate, I'd say 1440p is only just becoming the norm, so there's a ways to go before 4k and/or VR filters down from the 'Enthoos' to the averages...

[Jonj1611]

@jonj1611 the specs aren't over the top, I also have a 7950 but it does not get 75fps in most games! To have any real eye candy you see the minimum fps tumble, maybe some basic demos it is okay but mainstream content it's pushing it, the consumer version is running at 90fps which is even higher let alone the fact that the display has gone from displaying 2 million pixels to 2.6 million pixels and they expect to keep this recommended spec for a long while... It's easy to see how these are not really over the top anymore .

That's a fair point but I was running Grid Autosport etc and never had any issues but guess other people will have a different experience. As for eye candy, hmm not sure if that will ever be something you will really get to see, for me the Rift was always like when you sit too close to the TV, you could virtually see the pixels and unless mine was faulty it seemed a bit washed out. Maybe, well hopefully that will be rectified in the final version. I also tried out the virtual cinema and my experience wasn't as epic as yours it seems, it was ok but couldn't imagine watching a 2 hour film like that.

However I will be interested to see what the consumer version brings and I will get one if the price is right.

[Hicks12]

That's a fair point but I was running Grid Autosport etc and never had any issues but guess other people will have a different experience. As for eye candy, hmm not sure if that will ever be something you will really get to see, for me the Rift was always like when you sit too close to the TV, you could virtually see the pixels and unless mine was faulty it seemed a bit washed out. Maybe, well hopefully that will be rectified in the final version. I also tried out the virtual cinema and my experience wasn't as epic as yours it seems, it was ok but couldn't imagine watching a 2 hour film like that.

However I will be interested to see what the consumer version brings and I will get one if the price is right.

My main use of the dk2 is for developing my game, dont know about yourself but thats kinda why I can live with the shortcomings I guess . If you dont measure your IPD correctly then things will look washed out and blurry, depends how much time you gave to calibrating it correctly to your own person. The issue you described about the pixels is unfortunately a limitation of this generation, 1080p screens is not enough as the use of lenses magnifies the display by a huge amount so you will see the sub pixel layer, this is commonly called the screen door effect which annoys people on various levels .

Screendoor of the CV1 is vastly reduced from DK2, a use of a diffuser means the its harder to see it and plus with the increased resolution it reduces this further which is another reason why VR cant be 'mainstream' yet because quite frankly the main GPUs cant do 4k at 90fps and we need at least 4k to improve the screendoor effect to almost negligible amount, think I recall palmer saying something along the lines of 8k screen being needed along with some other technology changes for the screendoor effect to be completely eliminated so we have a long road ahead of us!