Oculus Founder: Rift Will Come To Mac If Apple "Ever Releases a Good Computer" (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It's been almost a year now since Oculus announced that the consumer version of the Rift virtual-reality headset would only support Windows PCs at launch -- a turnaround from development kits that worked fine on Mac and Linux boxes. Now, according to Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, it "is up to Apple" to change that state of affairs. Specifically, "if they ever release a good computer, we will do it," he told Shacknews recently. Basically, Luckey continued, even the highest-end Mac you can buy would not provide an enjoyable experience on the final Rift hardware, which is significantly more powerful than early development kits. "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."

Comments

It has been awhile

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been awhile since I have been impressed with the performance of apple hardware

Re:It has been awhile

[mattventura]

It's pretty true. The Mac Pro used to be a high-end 2CPU workstation comparable with offerings from any business PC manufacturer. Now it's a little tin can with 1 CPU. The issue with Apple used to be that you would pay significantly more for the same performance. Now the issue is that no amount of money can buy that performance even if you have a blank check, other than nonstandard solutions like eGPUs.

Re: It has been awhile

[dhawton]

It's also "a lot".

Re:It has been awhile

[scarboni888]

Merriam-Webster begs to differ:

http://www.merriam-webster.com...

Re: It has been awhile

[fisted]

Thanks for coming a long to tell me this.

Re: It has been awhile

[D.McG.]

That's disingenuous. That one "chip" can be configured at purchase to be a 4, 6, 8, or 12-core Xeon. The only problem is their choice of workstation GPUs. I hope they offer Nvidia Pascal GPUs in the near future. Should be low power enough for their quiet cooling solution.

Re:It has been awhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC, just because. I bought a 2015 MBP... guess what, when doing anything serious with it, it overheats, and sometimes it might throttle back, othertimes, it just thermal-halts, or gives the pinwheel of death. I've had to grab an app someone wrote on GitHub to scale back my stuff when the thermal pressure of the Mac went above a certain level. Memory pressure, same... Run too much stuff, and Macs don't swap gracefully... they thrash, pretty much requiring a force-off with the power button. Genius support can't really do much because all fans are within parameters, and thermal shutdowns leave zero in the way of logs. Yes, I've done OS reloads, even booting the box from a Linux USB flash drive, typing in "blkdiscard -v /dev/sda" to ensure that the flash drive is absolutely clean, then reloading from that.

The ironic thing... my old MBP from ages ago, which is the same size... just keeps on ticking. It gets a new OS every year, but I've never had it just thermal suicide.

Now, lets look at Apple's other offerings.

The Mac Mini. What a joke. It was a four core machine until the last refresh two years ago... now it sports two cores + HT, slower, and less upgradable. Desperately needs some love.

The Mac Pro. The old Mac Pros used to have the ability to use RAID. This one? One SSD, and that's it? For a computer that will cost you $4000 for something with reasonable specs, this is just unacceptable. It also is a bitch to rack, requiring a third party kit.

The 2015 MacBook. WTF? These specs are good for a 2010 laptop, but with one expansion slot (which is used for power), and nothing else, this may be a great thing for a college students to write papers on, but this isn't a serious machine.

The iMac. It drives one screen OK... but most people run two or three heads these days, if only to play a game on one screen or VM while doing something on the other. Try that with an iMac, and you have a nice slideshow. Apple seems to use the absolute minimum it takes to drive a machine, GPU-wise.

Don't forget repairability. There isn't any.

Yes, Apple makes their money on the iPhone, but they really should not neglect their other product lines, and from what I've been seeing the past few years, the Mac offerings have been becoming more of toys at best, expensive paperweights at worst.

Maybe Apple just should get off their ass and make the old school Mac Pros, or just make toys and spin off the Mac line to another company that can focus on making a quality product.

Re: It has been awhile

[110010001000]

You guys are such loosers.

Re:It has been awhile

[JDG1980]

The Mac Pro. The old Mac Pros used to have the ability to use RAID. This one? One SSD, and that's it? For a computer that will cost you $4000 for something with reasonable specs, this is just unacceptable. It also is a bitch to rack, requiring a third party kit.

You're supposed to be keeping your bulk storage on a NAS, not the local machine. That's the modern way of doing things. About the only task this isn't adequate for is video editing, so that may require an external RAID box. But why should everyone else need to buy a massive, bloated tower when only a handful of workstations actually need it?

And why would you want to rack-mount this system? It's a workstation, not a server.

Re: It has been awhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the desktop CPU's do not support multiple CPU configurations, so you either have a single desktop i7 or you have a multi xeon CPU.

The article is correct though about the choice of graphics hardware, which is unfortunately a limitation of their current hardware offerings.

Re:It has been awhile

[FlyHelicopters]

Considering how much Microsoft is hell-bent on alienating their users with Win10, and considering what you've just described, where will the desktop computer market go from here?

Windows... you may think the issues are huge, but outside a handful of uber pissed of people, I find that most people either don't care, or aren't even aware of it.

I'm not saying it doesn't matter, I'm simply saying that it is number 417 on their give a crap list and it just doesn't register on their radar.

Re:It has been awhile

[TitusC3v5]

I also have the 2015 MacBook Pro (13"), and I've never had any of the thermal issues you're describing.

Re: It has been awhile

[Anonymous Coward]

False. Eons use exactly the same architecture as desktop CPUs, they just have additional support for (originally SMP), and more recently, NUMA. A 12 core Xeon is directly equivalent to a modern 4 core i7, just with 3 times as many cores.

Re:It has been awhile

[Anonymous Coward]

My mind was blown at how places are actually turning to Linux for desktops. My last place I worked at used Ubuntu. My current place, I'm using RHEL. Outlook? In a VM accessed via RDP, or just using OWA outright.

Here is what a Linux desktop gives you:

1: Ease of reimaging... PXE boot, kickstart... done. If LDAP is used for authorization, that can be tossed in the .ks file. Same with ansible [1].

2: No telemetry data sucked to MS, no privacy invasions, no scanning of documents. Stuff stays put on Linux.

3: Fewer reboots needed... and when they are needed, it is truly something that needs a reboot, like the kernel. Most stuff can be updated, daemon restarted, done.

4: Backups are easier. Pick your poison, obnam, zbackup, bup, borgbackup, etc.

5: No internal activation servers needed. No vendor true-ups. No service audits.

6: Linux encryption can be done on the disk, homedir level, or both.

7: Even though GUIs on Linux are horri-bad when it comes to memory footprints, you can find something that isn't too bad. KDE is relatively fast, and items like kwrite are lightweight and support the markdown format popular with Git.

8: Security patches are extremely fast. A "yum update" or an "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" will fix issues. Windows and OS X users usually have to wait weeks for those to be dealt with.

9: It is trivial with a CM tool to audit/manage a large amount of desktops. SSH bug? ansible all -a "yum -y upgrade openssh". Want to make sure all systems are patched? ansible all -a "rpm -qa|grep openssh". What a spreadsheet? CM tool + jinja.

If you are a glutton for pain and punishment, there is always Katello which has a warm fuzzy web interface to check machines' patch levels. However, it is VERY brittle and has so many moving parts (puppet, pulp, celery, foreman, mongodb, mysql, and shitloads of more stuff) that it is a nice toy, but falls flat on its face if you actually try to get it to do anything.

Of course, Linux isn't for everyone. Larger enterprises live and die on GPOs. But, it is something that more companies are using because of the privacy invasions and the ever-increasing licensing costs from MS.

[1]: Yes, puppet and chef are cool... but ansible takes the cake for needing nothing but python libraries on the client side to be operable and working, and puppet has a shitload of moving parts, which is just asking for security issues down the road. Ansible? If SSH is broken, everyone is fscked anyway.

Re: It has been awhile

[Khyber]

"That one "chip" can be configured at purchase to be a 4, 6, 8, or 12-core Xeon."

That's disingenuous too, right the fuck back at you, when all of those same Xeons come with the same crippled amount of PCI-E lanes *AND* have an inherent architectural limitation that totally fucks the system over trying to do more than 2CPU/2GPU configurations.

Try again when you actually have to deal with the processor and architectural errata on a daily basis, instead of Macshilling, eh?

Re:It has been awhile

[Khyber]

"That's the modern way of doing things."

Yep, let's make MORE POINTS OF FAILURE by having ANOTHER MACHINE TO MAINTAIN.

You modernists are fucking morons.

Re:It has been awhile

[flopsquad]

Ditto. 2015MBP has been rock solid concurrently running 3-5 "heavy hitter" design apps (incl. video, audio, and photo editing), plus a few dozen tabs across multiple browsers, plus a few of the (decidedly 2nd class) MS Office apps. At times with dev + server stuff as well.

I don't really need much more out of it. Never had it crash or hitch due to thermals or for any other reason (though the boys do occasionally get a bit toasty). Maybe GP got a bad apple? *ducks*

I guess if I cared about high-end PC gaming or... running SolidWorks in VR while decoding genomes(?), I would've gone a different direction.

Re:It has been awhile

[KGIII]

Both your comment and his are rough! I mean rough! True, but rough.

Then again, let's be clear... In my opinion:

They make fine hardware. I'm just not impressed with it. It's definitely good for what it is. I'm pretty sure that they could do better, especially at their prices and volume. By better, I mean higher specs with regards to speed and storage capacity. The OS is fairly capable, I've no complaints there and I've used it enough to know that I'm pretty sure that they're more than just appliances. The thing is, the vast majority of people use them like appliances and that's okay too. It's what they want, it's what they want to do, and it's probably good that they have the freedom to decide that sort of thing. Having OS X is good in that it gives people options.

Due to extenuating circumstances, I've purchased a whole lot of Apple hardware. I'm not even a fan of Apple! However, I've probably purchased more Apple devices than anyone here unless they're in charge of provisioning a large company and doing the purchase orders for them. But, where it comes to spending my own money on Apple devices, I'm pretty sure I've exceeded the number purchased by anyone in this entire thread - maybe even combined.

But...

Here's the thing? I go through a lot of hardware. I have my reasons! It's not an addiction! Err... Anyhow, I go through a lot of hardware and I'm really not able to recall the last time I was well and truly impressed. It hasn't been for a while. I think the last time I was impressed was when I jumped to a quad-core system that was 64 bit and had 8 GB of RAM. Other than that, the jump to an SSD was a meaningful moment.

Other than that? I can't really think of anything recent that has impressed me. I don't notice much of a difference between this year and last year's computers. I don't even notice much of a difference between this year's and the ones from four years ago. I don't even notice much of a difference after I get past 16 GB of RAM. I really don't? I'm not a gamer so that's not something I'd notice. I don't even bother buying bleeding edge anymore. At least not most of the time. Frankly, for what I do, I've got ample hardware that is good enough. I've not had anything impress me for quite a while now.

Maybe that's part of the problem? I bought a really, really nice mobile workstation from a company called Titan Computers. It's the X4K with everything maxed out except for the OS, I provided that on my own. I paid a small fortune for it - I'd not spent that much on a laptop in years. Given that my previous laptops lower specs than the new one, I'm a bit impressed with it but not overly so. I'm impressed that it is in a laptop but I'm not impressed in the nature of the beast - I can get (and have) that in desktops. I'm not sure that I'm expressing that well. It is impressive but only because it's in a laptop - and it's not that impressive because I could have bought the same damned thing (pretty much) a few years ago and just opted to not bother - because it's not that much more impressive.

So, we're not seeing anything impressive because we're acclimated to the scene. If we could see today's hardware back in, say, 2000 (or 1995) we'd be pretty damned impressed. They're good computers, they're excellent computers. We're desensitized, so to speak, so we're not thinking of them as good computers but, really, they're fantastic machines.

And yes, that goes for Apple. They do make good computers. They make fine computers. We're just not impressed because there haven't been any great leaps forward in what seems like a long time and many of us were there for the days when we'd refresh every single year and we were impressed with how much change had occurred during that cycle. I dunno? That's kind of what it seems like to me. I'd go on to try to explain it a bit better but I'm actually a bit time constrained.

Re:It has been awhile

[KGIII]

> ...it seems to be the PC guys that are fussy about looks over performance.

No, it seems like the "PC guys" are fussy about choice, but you know that. It's tough to admit, surely. They can choose an external or an internal solution. You don't get that *choice* at all. It's cute that you try to get in some sort of perceived slight or negative remark but, really, we're not that dumb. Well, I'm not - I can't speak for the rest. I'm not sure how you define "PC guys" but I'll see if I can help you out.

Just because it works for you and is your preferred method (which it probably isn't but you're compelled to say it is because you need affirmation and you've tied your self-worth and identity to a brand) does not actually mean that it works for everyone or that it is their preferred method. Trying to claim it's about looks is just plain silly and I doubt anyone's dumb enough to fall for it.

No, I suspect the PC users care about being able to make choices. That's something you gave up when you decide to use an Apple. You decided to limit your other choices. That's fine but tying your identity to it, seeking affirmation, and attempting to claim some sort of superiority for having done so is just plain silly and childish. You've tied yourself and your identity to something you've no control over, did not contribute to, and have ceased to be rational about that choice. It is rather telling, unfortunately.

It's sad that you've got a frail ego, low self-worth, and few meaningful accomplishments in life. If those things were a bit different, a bit improved, you might not have to bolster yourself-image with a bunch of code you didn't write, a device you didn't create, and a brand you have no control over. Your choice of OS is not significant, important, or meaningful. I know that's rough to hear but the sooner you realize this the better off you'll be.

Get a dog, climb a mountain, run a race, lose a few pounds, brush your teeth, take a shower, get a real friend, go on a date with someone you think is cute, whatever... But do something, something meaningful and an accomplishment that makes you feel good about yourself. Relying on getting an ego boost from your computer is really kind of sad. Seriously, that's not a slight nor is my intent to be derogatory.

It really is kind of sad to see a grown adult tie so much of their identity to something they've no control over. It's like blind patriotism or being proud of accomplishments that you didn't contribute to. Life would be so much more meaningful for you if you actually accomplish something you can be proud about. I'm baffled as to why you might feel superior for having chosen to have fewer choices.

There are lots of reasons to like Apple but to tie your identity to it enough to cause delusions and irrational thinking is indicative of poor mental health and a frail ego. That you'd twist logic so far, just to make a perceived slight, really does demonstrate your unhealthy mental process and that sort of process doesn't happen without reason. There's almost always a cause, it could be as simple as a chemical imbalance. I don't know how old you are but if this sort of thing keeps up and you find that you're unable to control it then you might want to seek professional help.

It's like arguing over who is using the better programming language instead of using quantifiable metrics to determine which of you wrote the better program. It's like thinking that rooting for a certain sports team makes you a better person. It's like thinking that believing in a certain deity makes you a better person - even if that belief doesn't mean you've changed your behavior. Seriously, I wish you luck but get help with that.

Re: It has been awhile

[fnj]

Oh, wow, a 12-core Xeon, big whoop.

Go sell your derangement somewhere else. A 12-core Xeon E5-2697 v2 will pound whatever you've got into the dust, chump. 24 threads, 30 MB cache, 768 GB RAM accessability, 60 GBps of ECC RAM bandwidth, 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes of IO.

Re: It has been awhile

[Golden_Rider]

I had a Macbook Pro 15" two years ago (retina with Nvidia dedicated GPU). When I played GPU/CPU intensive games on it, the battery drained and eventually the notebook turned off EVEN WITH THE POWER SUPPLY PLUGGED IN, because the power supply was undersized and could not deliver enough power - so the battery had to be used, too. When I visited the Apple forums to look into this problem, I found that I was not the only one with this problem - it was apparently well-known, but Apple did not care. That was when I decided to switch to non-Apple notebooks from then on. Apparently having a small, nice-to-look-at power supply was more important for them than having a power supply which actually can handle the notebook being used for more than only browsing and facebooking.

Apple still ships the same 85W power supply for all 15" models of the Macbook Pro. As a random example of another manufacturer, Dell ships the XPS15 with a 130W power supply.

Re:It has been awhile

[thegarbz]

"That's the modern way of doing things."

Yep, let's make MORE POINTS OF FAILURE by having ANOTHER MACHINE TO MAINTAIN.

You modernists are fucking morons.

Actually I read this as having less to maintain. I prefer not to have to maintain multiple RAID systems, and multiple file synchronisation solutions between multiple machines when I can stick it all one one purpose built NAS.

Also if you have to capitalise the word "maintain" then you're doing your NAS very wrong. If anything "maintain" only needs to be capitalised if you DON'T have a NAS, and I'm an advocate for NAS solutions in everyone's personal home for their brain dead easy maintenance methods that makes the chore of dealing with failure and creating backups even less than a minor inconvenience.

Modernist and proud.

Re:It has been awhile

[mvdwege]

Shorter version of your post: "You're holding it wrong"

Re: It has been awhile

[sexconker]

Oh, wow, a 12-core Xeon, big whoop.

Go sell your derangement somewhere else. A 12-core Xeon E5-2697 v2 will pound whatever you've got into the dust, chump. 24 threads, 30 MB cache, 768 GB RAM accessability, 60 GBps of ECC RAM bandwidth, 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes of IO.

It's been nearly a year since we bought the 18 core Xeons, "chump".

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[PhrostyMcByte]

You can build a sub-$1000 PC that will work with the Rift. Some people have posted builds much lower. Price isn't the problem. High-end Macs just don't have gaming GPUs.

unimpressive goes both ways

[Lead Butthead]

Unfortunately, the same can be said about general boneheaded behavior of top company officers.

Re: unimpressive goes both ways

[Namarrgon]

Maybe consider the comments in the context of the interview, i.e. "a good computer" for high-end VR specifically.

Consider also that headlines often use quotes out of context in order to deliberately provoke reactions like yours. The full story is usually more nuanced than that, if not the opposite of how the headline sounds.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Sable Drakon]

Not really. The reason why the spendiest MacPro doesn't support OR is all in the GPU, the FirePro D700 isn't designed to achieve high framerates in games.

Re:Apple is about user experience

[JohnStock]

Don't kid yourself, they are focused on selling overpriced hardware to maximise profits. No battery problems with a desktop mate. The article says it perfectly in that Macs are just not good enough.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[vux984]

If a high end Mac won't support it. You will need a higher end PC which will be beyond most people's budgets.

Not even slightly. Because iMacs have basically shit graphics and aren't upgradeable due to being all in one.

And the mac pros have specialist workstation graphics cards certified for CAD etc; which are extremely expensive, and very good for CAD, but not so great for games; and they also ship with Xeons etc which push the price way up.

Meanwhile a basic PC tower with a decent i5/i7 and a highend video card can be had for $1500 or less.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

The most expensive Mac has a GPU that is useless for high-end gaming. Intel integrated graphics are not even close to being OK for this purpose, and an expensive AMD card that is specialized for CAD and graphic design simply isn't capable of working for VR. There's no reason for Oculus or HTC/Valve to invest a single second of time trying to support those systems.

Processing power isn't the bottle neck. I have a system built on a 2600K processor, which is fairly old, but it's clocked to over 3.5 ghz, and it's not a problem. My system still crushes Valves VR capability test rather handily, because I have a GTX980 as the graphics card.

A gaming box can be built that would be adequate for VR for around $1000. There isn't a single Mac that is capable, no matter how much money you throw at Apple. Even if you could throw, say a Geforce GTX980ti in one, the drivers don't exist. Apple maintains complete driver control on their platform, and even when they DID provide options that included then-equivalent hardware, the performance was abysmal.

Prepare for hipster onslaught in 3..2..

[elrous0]

I can hear them typing away furiously on their Macbooks from here.

Re:Prepare for hipster onslaught in 3..2..

[squiggleslash]

You live next to a coffee shop? ;-)

Re:Prepare for hipster onslaught in 3..2..

[swb]

The punchline response is "No, I live next to a bowling alley. The coffee shop is on the other side."

Re:Apple is about user experience

[fluffernutter]

You know what, that's how I feel too.. but an awful lot of people in the market go for that user experience, and I'm long past blaming Apple for going for that market. I would never buy it, but a lot of people do.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with a Mac is that they are over expensive yet only have what is essentially a low end mobile GPU in them. For the price of a Mac, you can build a PC that will work with the rift. (And outperform the Mac completely)

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have builds to meet the recommended spec on the specs page... It currently takes $1100. You can reach the minimum with $800 just barely.

That's a pretty damn high end machine.

But yes, ultimately the issue is not that apple didn't "release a good computer", it's that apple's computers aren't targeted at gaming, and hence don't have gaming GPUs in them.

Re:What a way to make a bad impression

[spacepimp]

Are you sure you belong here on slashdot? A Mac Pro is worthless as a gaming machine. I have a top end top spec macbook pro, and it too is worthless for gaming. Not even remotely close to a good experience. Its better at other things if that makes you feel any better. However buying a mac pro then expecting to have it be useful for high end gaming and (VR) which easily doubles the demands is an error on behalf of the consumer not Oculus. Double screens with wide FOV at a nausea reducing fast refresh rate is very hardware demanding. The hardware capacity to do things like VR/Oculus are just now reaching scale to reach a first early adopter generation. I doubt you are the target audience judging from your lack of information, and unrequited outrage.

The trouble is the Video Chip

[rsilvergun]

High end Macs come with Work Station graphics cards. They're not meant for rendering games in realtime, they're meant for running Maya/Photoshop (think editing a 12k image), Autocad etc, etc. They can run games, just not very well.

The rest of Apple's range ships with Intel Graphics, which they swapped back to as soon as they were good enough to do 4k+ light 3D (think Bioshock Infinite levels).

Apple can sell you a $2000 laptop with $400 worth of hardware. There's no way they're going to bite into that profit margin for the sake of a few early adopters and drop $300 worth of graphics in there. They only do that on the workstation because the computers would be basically worthless otherwise, and there they crank the price up to 6k to compensate...

Re:The trouble is the Video Chip

[Kremmy]

But the particular models they come with are outdated enough that they no longer have those advantages over current gaming GPUs at a fraction of the price.
It's a serious waste.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple hardware works, their software easy and reliable (except #&^@#* iTunes), and they are very popular, but their keyboards suck, their GPUs underpowered and all up overpriced compared to PC hardware. I really wish Apple would compete on those fronts, because unlike Microsoft and their arrogant groping molester Windows 10, Apple does give a damn about privacy. Please TimCook, fix these things and I'll jump. Promise.

If

[Ol Olsoc]

I want a machine that Oculus rift runs on, I'll buy that machine. Whats the big deal? It's why I have Mac PC and Linux machines. Each is a tool that has it's purpose.

As it is now, Lucky is just another redneck at the corner gas, spitting his baccy on the woodturner and arguing with the others about "Ferds and Chivvies". If you don't want to release it for Mac, don't. Don't be a fucking asshole about it. Oops - too late.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... no.

See for the work I do (service Scientific instruments) I use a Mac, because I am more productive on the Mac , and when I am charging customers $200/hr they don't want to pay for me to piss about with a high end gaming rig.

The price difference is irrelevant, make up a couple of hours in increased productivity and that difference is gone. And that would be just in the first month, after 4+ years the Mac turns out to be profitable as I have probably saved 40-60 hours and more (i.e. about $8000-$12,000 plus of billable hours)

Your needs are not mine, you may be more productive in Windows/Linux, so go for it, use what best for you. It is a tool and I choose the best ones that work well and "feel right", be it a computer, oscilloscope, logic analyser, socket set or screw driver.

So, if Apple does not make what you want, who cares, buy what you need elsewhere, they are under no obligation to build anything they don't want to.

Sure, but why no Linux build?

[Phil Urich]

While I got a chuckle out of the burn against Apple, it does just seem in general like they aren't working on cross-platform support at all anymore.

Re:Sure, but why no Linux build?

[Feral Nerd]

While I got a chuckle out of the burn against Apple, it does just seem in general like they aren't working on cross-platform support at all anymore.

Yeah, is the problem really that Apple makes crappy computers or that Oculus makes bloated and inefficient hardware/software? A colleague of mine is nuts about this thing and pre-ordered one for a somewhat higher amount of money than I spent on a Zeiss rifle scope and a set of quality quick release attachments (and I thought I was being frivolous about spending but at least that scope will last me for life) because he not only did he have to fork over wad of cash for the Rift, he also had to upgrade his computer and buy a particular display card recommended by Oculus. I can see what fascinates people about a device like the Oculus Rift, especially if you are into flight sims like my colleague, but I think that the Rift has been hyped up beyond reason.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Trepidity]

I see them pretty commonly in tech. Some people go all-out and run Linux or a BSD on their laptop, but for those who don't want to deal with the hardware-support issues, OSX is often the next choice.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet I work with Chemists, Physicists, Microbiologists,Mathematicians, statisticians, bioinformaticians,vets, engineers, etc etc who use Macs.
Those same groups also use Windows and Linux too because they are smart enough to use the tool that works best for them.

Increased productivity, by giving people the right tools quickly pays for its self, the more productive these people are, the more papers they can produce, which helps them get research grants, which attracts quality PhD students, which brings in more money, etc etc etc etc. We use a huge range of OSS and commercial software for teaching and research.

The only thing that lacked substance was your comment, because you clearly have no idea.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Dynedain]

No, they have high-end professional GPUs which are tuned for different behaviors, like much more memory for textures, raytracing, particle systems, and higher poly counts, which comes at the expense of lower FPS and other shader-specific differences.

The Mac Pros are using GPUs designed for the people who are creating content, rather than those consuming the content. This stuff goes back decades. I remember buying specific more-expensive GPUs from NVidia sepcifically because they had enhancements and features that 3DStudio and Maya would use, but no game ever would. And gaming performance sucked, but there were things I could do in real-time while 3D modeling that no other card could provide.

Re:educational user here

[JDG1980]

the base spec at academic is more in line with the lack of power. recently we bought the 5k 27" imacs at a base price of £1245 I think. overpriced but compared tro the arse fucking that dell indulges in with its 'partners', not shocking.

It might be overpriced if you're only looking at the CPU, GPU, and RAM. But don't forget that the 27" iMac includes a 5K panel that supports wide gamut and is by all accounts excellent in calibration and color reproduction. A Dell 27" 5K monitor by itself is over $1,500 - compared to that, getting an equivalent monitor plus a whole computer for about $1770 US (based on the British price you listed above) seems like a bargain.

And if the university is full of creative types running the Adobe apps, then they probably really do need quality monitors.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Dynedain]

The Quadros have some crazy features, like antialiasing and polycounts in wireframe mode that result in FPS in CAD or 3D Studio/Maya at levels that a gaming card can't even touch.

The tradeoff however is that these card suck at DirectX and gaming-oriented shader techniques.

Apple and Games

[Zobeid]

I've been using nothing but Macs around my house for many years, and I'm on a Mac Pro right now. I guess I'm what you might call a die-hard Mac user. However. . . I'm not going to fight reality on this one. I've already ordered a gaming PC with Windows to power a Vive. The Mac will continue to do everything else for me, but when it comes to games and VR, I knew it just didn't make good sense.

Mac users have griped for years and years about Apple never producing a reasonably specified mini-tower suitable for gaming. Sad fact is, Apple as a company has no gaming in their DNA or their corporate culture. Steve Jobs didn't get games, didn't like games, and his attitude filtered down through the ranks. To the extent that gaming is viable on the Mac today at all, it's almost entirely due to Valve and Steam, not Apple.

Re:Apple and Games

[Jeremi]

Well, there is always the possibility of hooking up an external GPU via Thunderbolt -- in principle, anyway, dunno if it will be well-supported or practical.

Wow, this is different

[blindseer]

After years, decades perhaps, of people calling Apple computers "toys" we have someone complaining that Apple no longer makes a "toy" computer.

I remember in college someone telling me that while Macs were good for graphics they sucked for doing "real" math. This was at a time before 3D accelerator cards existed. I pointed out to him that graphics to a computer was nothing more than a series of mathematical computations, so I asked him how exactly a computer capable of such a feat of performing such complex computations was incapable of performing "real" math? He was struck silent.

Now I have someone telling me that while high end Macs might be good number crunchers they suck at graphics. Okay then, but what makes the Windows computers so good at graphics? It's not the OS. It's not the processor. The difference is the GPU, which is available as an add-on.

It took me a matter of minutes to find that people have been adding GPUs to Macs on a Thunderbolt port for years. I happened to click on a link that showed me that this same feat has been done on Windows computers as well. Running Windows on an Apple is a trivial feat so therefore I can only assume that Apple computers are fully capable of functioning with Oculus Rift hardware to those willing to go through the minor inconvenience of installing Windows on their computer and purchasing what is likely to be a video card that they'd have to buy anyway if they bought a computer that had Windows installed out of the box.

Sounds to me that the guy doesn't want to bother servicing Apple owners out of laziness more than anything.

Perhaps I missed something important here. I'm not much of a gamer and I don't follow the changes in hardware like I used to, my current job doesn't require me to recommend hardware purchases like previous jobs did.

Re:Wow, this is different

[nateman1352]

It took me a matter of minutes to find that people have been adding GPUs to Macs on a Thunderbolt port for years.

You are right, it is possible to use an external enclosure connected via Thunderbolt to add a GPU to a Mac. But those enclosures are expensive, and Thunderbolt isn't exactly designed with this task in mind. The performance you get out of this solution won't be as good as a regular old PC, and you going to spend 3X the cash for worse performance.

Consider that current Macs have Thunderbolt 2, which will give you 20 Gbit/sec of max bandwidth. Compare this to the 8 Gbit/sec per lane on PCIe 3.0 X 16 lanes = 128 GBit/sec bandwidth on a PCIe 3.0 X16 connection, Thunderbolt 2 only gives you 15% of the bandwidth. Surprisingly, Apple is late to the party shipping Thunderbolt 3 (Gigabyte and MSI have been offering it with their Skylake systems for a few months now) but when they do release a Thunderbolt 3 Mac, this will go up to 40 Gbit/sec, which is still only 31% of a PCIe 3.0 X16 link. Note that the PCIe external enclosures will also need to be updated to Thunderbolt 3, which has not happened yet.

Another thing to keep in mind is that on a lot of Macs Apple connects the Thunderbolt controller to the PCH PCIe, not the CPU PCIe, so you also have to count in the X4 DMI link between the PCH and the CPU will add latency and potentially be a bottleneck since all your disk and network access also goes over that X4 link. However, the high end Macs like the 15" Macbook Pro and the Mac Pro do have Thunderbolt connected to CPU PCIe.

Another thing to remember is that the 3D performance on the video drivers for OSX are usually not as optimized as the Windows drivers, there are many stories online about how installing Windows on your Mac boosts gaming performance. Honestly, the Occulus Rift guy is right here... he could have worded it more diplomatically though.

Re: So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Trepidity]

True, that's not far off. I think I last installed Linux in 2008. At the time, suspend/resume was very flaky, which was kind of a dealbreaker for a laptop. (It would often appear to work, but then various things would be broken in mysterious ways after resume.) It could well be reliable by now. But still, lots of Unixy people use OSX on their laptops, even when their preferred work environment on a VPS or remote server is Linux.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[Space cowboy]

There isn't a single Mac that is capable, no matter how much money you throw at Apple. Even if you could throw, say a Geforce GTX980ti in one, the drivers don't exist. Apple maintains complete driver control on their platform, and even when they DID provide options that included then-equivalent hardware, the performance was abysmal.

[looks at computer. Yep, it still exists. Phew!]

simon% system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType
Graphics/Displays:

Intel HD Graphics 4000:

Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics 4000
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Dynamic, Max): 1536 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x0166
Revision ID: 0x0009

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x8
VRAM (Total): 6143 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x17c8
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: VBIOS 84.00.36.00.90
Displays:
Cinema HD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Display Serial Number: CY7350KMXMP
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Cinema HD Display:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1200 x 1920
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: 270
Cinema HD Display:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1200 x 1920
Pixel Depth: 30-Bit Color (ARGB2101010)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: 270

You were saying ?

Performance seems pretty darn good to me. This is a Mac mini, by the way. It's driving 2x23" monitors (sideways on, for coding on) and one 30" monitor (main display, in the c

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[KGIII]

And wireless, and touch-pads, and extra keyboard functions, and back-lighting controls, and more...

Unless I'm reading you wrong and your post is sarcasm then I'm gonna have to guess you're either really new to Linux or don't actually use Linux. Visit any of the forums, visit any of the support pages. There are hardware support issues aplenty. You might say the pages abound with hardware support issues.

Visit AskUbuntu, the Linux Mint forum, Linux Questions, Arch forums, etc etc etc... Subscribe to the mailing lists, read their archives, etc...

No, there are plenty of issues with hardware and Linux. It's usually resolvable but the problems do exist. I say this as a Linux user. It's not like I'm just making it up.

At the same time, today, I hardly ever have hardware issues that I can't just figure out with a quick Google. More often than not, I don't have any hardware issues at all. That's a matter of selecting certain components and being willing to accept that things like sleep don't work when I close my laptop lid. I didn't really like (or use) that feature anyhow so it's no big deal to me.

I don't need to use the buttons on the keyboard to control the monitor's brightness. If it doesn't work and I need it then I'll just find the command, alias it, and make adjustments via the terminal.

I'm not a gamer, I don't care if I have the most FPS. I'll just use the open source drivers for my GPU - thanks. I don't need the proprietary stuff because the most graphics intensive thing I'm going to do is watch a documentary. Maybe, just maybe, I might open GIMP. Probably not though - I'm good for stick figures.

I don't worry about one of those pen and tablet things to draw on. I've never actually found a printer that didn't work, eventually. I don't buy the three-in-one nor do I print things that need exact colors for the purpose of photography. So, I'm good there too.

I've come across a few distros that, for whatever reason, don't like certain hardware - that's okay, I'm flexible. I'll find another OS on there. Back home I have, for example, one particular desktop (not much different from another - with the exact same GPU) that doesn't like Mint. For some reason, the screen tears a couple of times and it drops me into TTY. To top it off, it won't restart Xorg or whatever it was. So, that one went into the bit bucket and I tossed another distro on and, sure enough, it was good to go.

Then, I could go back through my own history... The above is just today, right now, that I can think of - and limited by how much effort I'm willing to put into thought. I've seen loads of complaints. I don't really have any problems because I'm not actually usually impacted by it. It's just that it would be dishonest to say that Linux doesn't have some device driver shortcomings. I've even come across a USB drive that would not, for the life of me, work with any of the distros that I had installed - while it worked fine in any non-Linux OS that I had access to, as well as working just fine with BSD. (It was some iOmega device, as I recall.)

It's not as bad as it used to be. Not at all. It is usually something that can be fixed but it's not always peachy and fine right from the go. If you've never had any "bigger hardware support issues" with Linux then perhaps you're fairly new to the OS or you're just not trying hard enough. Then again, it might be the other way around and you're a true guru who doesn't have problems because you're really, really good at writing your own drivers or the likes.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[steveha]

The Mac Pros are using GPUs designed for the people who are creating content

And the Mac Pros were designed to be impossible to upgrade. Want to put in a "gaming" GPU? So sorry, you can't.

And the Mac Pros don't have a model that ships with a "gaming" GPU. Are you shouting "hey Apple, take my money?" They aren't taking it.

The weird thing is that the Mac Pro is really getting long in the tooth. Seriously overdue for an upgrade. According to an article I just found, Apple is likely to either update in 2016, or never as the Mac Pro has been something of a flop.

But it sure looks cool... it's like Darth Vader's own trash can (and I don't mean that as an insult).

Instead of an upgraded Mac Pro, Apple might come out with a model that actually has internal bays for things like drives, and actually has upgradeable video cards.

The current Mac Pro design would rock as a "Mac Mini Pro" if Apple would release a model just like it but $1200 and with a gaming GPU.

Apple's model of "only have a few different models, and make as much as possible on each model" is starting to hurt them in the high end of the market. The pro users who should buy the Mac Pro are not being well served, and they are getting tired of it.

Stick a fork in it....

[beheaderaswp]

I'm about to unleash a harsh opinion. I worked for Apple from 1995 until 2001.

It's over honestly. I own no current Apple equipment, and I'm not interested in any. (more below)

Steve Jobs was the savior of the company to be sure- but he also pulled Apple out of the computer market in a big way. During my time you could by a Mac that would run circles around anything you could obtain on a PC. Heck going back to NuBus there was astounding graphics capability on Macs. When the company rolled out the G3/G4/G5 processors- they were stepping all over Intel based machines in big ways. And you could get aftermarket GPUs which were the equals of their PC counterparts.

Then came the start of what I consider to be the "dumbing down" of these computers. One of the first things I noticed was that Apple was making machines that were a generation behind in memory architecture. Then they moved off of RISC and starting using Intel chips. Then the logic boards were reportedly "Asus compatible".

What has happened since the glory days? Well- they stopped focusing on computing. It appears to be an afterthought. It's iPods... iPhones.... iWatches. The Mac is essentially a PC architecture with an alternative operating system. Anyone who knows that buys a PC, unless they think that Mac OS has something really compelling.

It is sad that this is happening. Apple had a compelling reason to be in the marketplace, and many firsts ion new and killer technology. Now I'm looking at artsy fartsy foo foo machines with no guts. I don't mind foo foo design- I might even like it. But I've got 8 x86 cores, watercooled,16gb of RAM, and a GTX 980 sitting next to me which cost me $1400.00 to build. And you could buy the machine assembled for not much more.

Rift isn't going to support VR on the Mac. And I certainly do not blame them. The platform is not not being maintained well or growing. From my perspective Apple is sucking the marrow out of the Macintosh until the bone is dry.

If in fact VR is the "next killer app" on the desktop- Apple appears to have not prepared for it at all.

So once in a while I pull out my old G3/604 machines. Load up Rhapsody Dev release from 1998- and enjoy the wave of nostalgia. Then I go back to my PC and do some work, with multiple virtual machines, running multiple OS's, with a movie playing on my third monitor....

This is of course my opinion. Apple isn't in the computer market anymore....

Re:Stick a fork in it....

[bungo]

Interesting perspective. Let me give myself as a counter example.

I came to Apple after the switch to Intel. I use any operating system that I need to (VAX/VMS was my favorite, I used to own a VAX cluster, then I got married). The main machine for email was a Linux box. My wife had a Windows computer, and I got sick of having to do technical support for it. It was my fault every time the scanner didn't work properly, or an update ran adn broke something, or the virus scanner went crazy. So, I bought wifey a MacBook. After setting it up and showing her how to access email and use the web browser, my amount of home technical support dropped by an order of magnitude.

When playing around with MacOS in a terminal, to my surprise it was all Unix underneath - up until then, I didn't know.

Since then I bought a number of other Macs. I have a big silver older generation MacPro, which was good for video editing at the time, but works well as a workstation with multiple screens. I have a Macbook Pro for when I go on site. Almost everything I do is via the terminal. I don't use the gui that much when I'm working. I used to use Linux laptops for work, but I never had luck with the sleep/wake functions, where I don't have problems with my Macbook.

Now, having said that, I don't use my Macs as my main machines. My currently biggest machine has 192GB ram, 17T HDD (inc a couple of SSDs), dual socket Xeon 6-core CPUs, running Linux. I don't know if the Mac Pro offerings can match that, but I'm sure that it if they did it would be way too expensive.

So, Apple may be more of a gadget shop these days, but as long as they keep putting out Unix based MacOS, then for me they are still making nice little workstations, but not workhorses.

Prepare for hipster onslaught in 3..2..

[Feral Nerd]

... hipster ...

The1960s called, they want their vocabulary back...

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[SuricouRaven]

"Instead of an upgraded Mac Pro, Apple might come out with a model that actually has internal bays for things like drives, and actually has upgradeable video cards."

You mean like the previous several generations of Mac Pro?

Re:100,000 people

[KGIII]

Is a mere 110,000 potential customers actually worth the capital investment costs? Is it worth the ongoing support? Out of that group, how many are likely to purchase and what is it going to cost go get them to make those purchases? Compound that with how much is it going to cost to develop the product, divide it by the projected number, and does it make sense for any reasons other than idealism?

Those are questions, not assertions. I really have no idea. I do not have the domain knowledge to even begin to speculate authoritatively.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[kuzb]

There was a point when music and video applications didn't run very well on Windows, and Linux was too difficult to use. However this hasn't really been true for decades now. The problem is these people have done nothing to update their knowledge since their first brush with it, and when the newbies ask what they should use they all point at their macs.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[kuzb]

I hate this argument. "I've never had problems, so nobody has problems". Every laptop I've ever tried to put linux on has had some part of it just flat out not work, or work poorly.

Re:100,000 people

[serviscope_minor]

I do not have the domain knowledge to even begin to speculate authoritatively.

Well, that leaves you in the ideal position to make strident, angry comments. This is slashdot, afterall.

Re:So what type of Windows PC do you need.

[thegarbz]

they had enhancements and features that 3DStudio and Maya would use

You mean like a resistor placed in a different place on the main board and the Quattro driver installed?
Or was there every actually any GPU that had specific hardware that made it different? From what I recall at least on the NVIDIA side for a good 10 years their pro/CAD GPU range was identical to their consumer range just with some software causing the difference. Mind you I haven't looked into it for a long time.

You would think by now someone could say something

[frnic]

This "lets tell everyone how bad Apple is" has been going on for as long as there has been an Apple computer. For years the punch line was "Apple is about to go out of business". Now it is Apple sucks at game.

Uh, Apple is not just here, it is on and off the most successful company in the history of the world. You know why? Because PEOPLE LIKE APPLE PRODUCTS AND SUPPORT. Geeks don't need or want it - fine. But this may come as a surprise to a few here, but Apple is not and never has been in business to make geeks happy. They are in business to make money, and they are very good at that.

Tell me again how wonderful Samsung phones are, and then lets compare profitability - you see that is why corporations exist, not so you can shove a memory card in your phone, but to make a profit. Apple makes money - because the average person likes their product and their support.

Not everyone likes Apple - DUH, does everyone like Ford or Chevy? DUH. To constantly for decades bring up these lame dog whistles about how Apple won't do this, or my home built is better is just proving you do not have a clue.

Bicycles make lousy snowboards, I think we should all boycott Canondale.