Palmer Luckey, the founder of Facebook's Oculus Rift VR system, has revealed that the Mac and the Oculus Rift are simply incompatible, meaning that if you've been looking forward to owning the upcoming headset but only have an Apple computer, you're plum out of luck, for the time being.
Luckey stated that the problem isn't with the Oculus Rift either, explaining that the problem falls entirely on Apple since its current line of computers lack the processing power required to support high-end virtual reality.
In an interview with Shacker News, Luckey responded to a question about whether the Oculus Rift would ever be compatible with a Mac. "That is up to Apple. If they ever release a good computer, we will do it," he said.
He went on to note that even the highest-end Mac Pros available on the market lack the specs needed to be compatible with Facebook's upcoming virtual reality headset.
"It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn't prioritize high-end GPUs," he said. "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. So if they prioritize higher-end GPUs like they used to for a while back in the day, we'd love to support Mac. But right now, there's just not a single machine out there that supports it."
So how do high-end Macs compare to what Oculus recommends for good performance "across the range of games and experiences?" Whereas Oculus recommends an Nvidia GTX 670 or AMD R9 290 GPU or equivalent, Apple's pricier Mac Pro configuration comes with a Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs.
This falls short of the specs recommended by Oculus VR, and the general consensus about the matter is that in terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the AMD 29 290 far surpasses that of the AMD FirePro D700.
Of course, this doesn't mean that your high-end Mac is garbage; it just means that it can't handle the Oculus Rift. If you fall within this category, you can hop on by the Microsoft Store and purchase Rift bundles that range from $1,499 to $2,699. Otherwise, they can be pre-ordered for their standard price of $599.
The Oculus Rift is expected to begin shipping to consumers on March 28.
