VR on Mac

[Tom]

Wondering if the Mac version supports VR sufficiently to be worth it. Anyone got a VR set running on an iMac or something and would share which VR set (goggles and controls) and what needs to be considered for getting it to run?

Just the more I play the more it seems to me the game is meant to be played in VR. So while I'm waiting for them to port Horizons to the Mac, I thought I'd get a VR set for New Year...

[Swans]

I don't believe the main players have restarted their Mac development, but the main question I have is over Mac power. I don't think there is a Mac that's powerful enough for a decent VR experience as things stand.

The AMD Fire Pro 700 in the Mac Pro is a weak card for gaming. There are dual Fire Pro 700 cards in the Mac Pro but as VR can't use SLI on PCs, there's a question mark over whether it could use dual cards in a Mac, even if there is a VR vendor supporting OSX.

I may be wrong. but I don't think there is anything more powerful than the Fire 700 cards in the current Mac Pro range?

[Laurreth]

The iMac Pro comes with a Vega 56 or 64, but if you buy one of those for games you have other problems :-P

[Tom]

The Radeon Pro 580 8 GB that I've got in this iMac is said to give quite decent VR performance. Maybe not on 5K, but I play on 2560x1440 and it's more than enough.

[Swans]

Originally posted by Tom:

The Radeon Pro 580 8 GB that I've got in this iMac is said to give quite decent VR performance. Maybe not on 5K, but I play on 2560x1440 and it's more than enough.

The Radeon Pro 580 is not a bad card but it's slower than an Nvidia GTX1070, it's more like a GTX1060.

Now, this is where things get a bit subjective; I had a GTX1070 when I first got my Oculus Rift and I'd say that the VR experience was just passable. I stuck a 1080 in there and VR was OK, but it was only when I stuck a GTX1080Ti in my PC that I felt I was getting the VR experience that I desired.

We all have different standards and maybe I'm a bit of a fusspot - I'm CEO of a large technology consultancy and have all the latest gear on tap, so perhaps I am spoiled! - but a GTX 1060 (equivalent to your card) is the bare minimum for VR. This leads me to believe things may be a bit touch and go for you, but perhaps someone out there with direct experience of a 1060 can comment? - as that's the same ballpark as your card.

VR is more taxing than 1440p BTW. Due to the proximity of the the lenses you tend to want lots of supersampling to prevent pixelisation, this taxes cards that otherwise look pretty good in 1440.

[Boomer]

Id say not. None of the vr players supported apple at all until recently. I still love palmers line "I'd like to support Apple, at the moment their top of the line $6000 iMac doesn't reach our minimum system requirements."

If you have a mac strong enough to do it. Buy a windows key and dual boot. Mac' graphics drivers are so bad horizions doesn't even function on mac, let alone VR

Though i haven't looked into the situation recently

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Shadowdancer:

The iMac Pro comes with a Vega 56 or 64, but if you buy one of those for games you're an idiot.

Fixed it for you

[LunaticEdit]

Originally posted by Swans:

Originally posted by Tom:

The Radeon Pro 580 8 GB that I've got in this iMac is said to give quite decent VR performance. Maybe not on 5K, but I play on 2560x1440 and it's more than enough.

The Radeon Pro 580 is not a bad card but it's slower than an Nvidia GTX1070, it's more like a GTX1060.

Now, this is where things get a bit subjective; I had a GTX1070 when I first got my Oculus Rift and I'd say that the VR experience was just passable. I stuck a 1080 in there and VR was OK, but it was only when I stuck a GTX1080Ti in my PC that I felt I was getting the VR experience that I desired.

We all have different standards and maybe I'm a bit of a fusspot - I'm CEO of a large technology consultancy and have all the latest gear on tap, so perhaps I am spoiled! - but a GTX 1060 (equivalent to your card) is the bare minimum for VR. This leads me to believe things may be a bit touch and go for you, but perhaps someone out there with direct experience of a 1060 can comment? - as that's the same ballpark as your card.

VR is more taxing than 1440p BTW. Due to the proximity of the the lenses you tend to want lots of supersampling to prevent pixelisation, this taxes cards that otherwise look pretty good in 1440.

1060 was passible? I have a 6GB 1060GTX and VR is butter smooth maxed out on everything I've played. I do have an i7 7700 and an M.2 for main storage (Alienware R6) so I'm not so sure your video card was the bottlekneck. I don't deny your claims though; it could simply be that I haven't played the same games you have.

[Swans]

Originally posted by LunaticEdit:

Originally posted by Swans:

The Radeon Pro 580 is not a bad card but it's slower than an Nvidia GTX1070, it's more like a GTX1060.

Now, this is where things get a bit subjective; I had a GTX1070 when I first got my Oculus Rift and I'd say that the VR experience was just passable. I stuck a 1080 in there and VR was OK, but it was only when I stuck a GTX1080Ti in my PC that I felt I was getting the VR experience that I desired.

We all have different standards and maybe I'm a bit of a fusspot - I'm CEO of a large technology consultancy and have all the latest gear on tap, so perhaps I am spoiled! - but a GTX 1060 (equivalent to your card) is the bare minimum for VR. This leads me to believe things may be a bit touch and go for you, but perhaps someone out there with direct experience of a 1060 can comment? - as that's the same ballpark as your card.

VR is more taxing than 1440p BTW. Due to the proximity of the the lenses you tend to want lots of supersampling to prevent pixelisation, this taxes cards that otherwise look pretty good in 1440.

1060 was passible? I have a 6GB 1060GTX and VR is butter smooth maxed out on everything I've played. I do have an i7 7700 and an M.2 for main storage (Alienware R6) so I'm not so sure your video card was the bottlekneck. I don't deny your claims though; it could simply be that I haven't played the same games you have.

I considered a 1070 passable in ED, I have not tried a 1060. But qualitative assessments are, by their very nature, largely subjective, hence the caveat.

GPU was most certainly the bottleneck as ran Perfmon on it. PC is a Core i7 6800K @ 4.8GHz with 64GB RAM 3000GHz RAM and Samsung M2, and understandably none of that stuff was breaking a sweat. CPU in ED does relatively little in fact, the game is entirely GPU bound, I am lucky to get 15% on each of the 12 cores in ED and can happily render an HD video while ED plays with no FPS drop.

It was not possible for me to max out, or even anywhere near, all key ED settings such as HMD and SS and you will not find anyone who's managed to max out those on a 1060 or even a 1080Ti, so with respect, I think you must be mistaken WRT maxing ED out on a 1060. There is a significant trade-off between HMD and SS and you will not be able to crank both to max on any existing GPU.

[LunaticEdit]

Originally posted by Swans:

Originally posted by LunaticEdit:

1060 was passible? I have a 6GB 1060GTX and VR is butter smooth maxed out on everything I've played. I do have an i7 7700 and an M.2 for main storage (Alienware R6) so I'm not so sure your video card was the bottlekneck. I don't deny your claims though; it could simply be that I haven't played the same games you have.

I considered a 1070 passable in ED, I have not tried a 1060. But qualitative assessments are, by their very nature, largely subjective, hence the caveat.

GPU was most certainly the bottleneck as ran Perfmon on it. PC is a Core i7 6800K @ 4.8GHz with 64GB RAM 3000GHz RAM and Samsung M2, and understandably none of that stuff was breaking a sweat. CPU in ED does relatively little in fact, the game is entirely GPU bound, I am lucky to get 15% on each of the 12 cores in ED and can happily render an HD video while ED plays with no FPS drop.

It was not possible for me to max out, or even anywhere near, all key ED settings such as HMD and SS and you will not find anyone who's managed to max out those on a 1060 or even a 1080Ti, so with respect, I think you must be mistaken WRT maxing ED out on a 1060. There is a significant trade-off between HMD and SS and you will not be able to crank both to max on any existing GPU.

It could be very possible that my global overrides are messing with settings on the game causing things to run better than they otherwise would. And I do admit ED, if any game, would push the card hard.

Now dwarf fortress on the other hand... :)

[Swans]

Originally posted by LunaticEdit:

Originally posted by Swans:

I considered a 1070 passable in ED, I have not tried a 1060. But qualitative assessments are, by their very nature, largely subjective, hence the caveat.

GPU was most certainly the bottleneck as ran Perfmon on it. PC is a Core i7 6800K @ 4.8GHz with 64GB RAM 3000GHz RAM and Samsung M2, and understandably none of that stuff was breaking a sweat. CPU in ED does relatively little in fact, the game is entirely GPU bound, I am lucky to get 15% on each of the 12 cores in ED and can happily render an HD video while ED plays with no FPS drop.

It was not possible for me to max out, or even anywhere near, all key ED settings such as HMD and SS and you will not find anyone who's managed to max out those on a 1060 or even a 1080Ti, so with respect, I think you must be mistaken WRT maxing ED out on a 1060. There is a significant trade-off between HMD and SS and you will not be able to crank both to max on any existing GPU.

It could be very possible that my global overrides are messing with settings on the game causing things to run better than they otherwise would. And I do admit ED, if any game, would push the card hard.

Now dwarf fortress on the other hand... :)

:) Yes, I think it's safe to say my 1070 coped just fine with other VR games, ED is the one that taxed it. I am not sure why this should be, being as ED is mainly empty space! What I found off-putting was the graininess in ED, perhaps in some of the faster games I was playing I did not have time to focus on this, but ED is often quite a slow-paced game, and I found myself being disgruntled by the pixellated text etc.

[LunaticEdit]

Originally posted by Swans:

:) Yes, I think it's safe to say my 1070 coped just fine with other VR games, ED is the one that taxed it. I am not sure why this should be, being as ED is mainly empty space! What I found off-putting was the graininess in ED, perhaps in some of the faster games I was playing I did not have time to focus on this, but ED is often quite a slow-paced game, and I found myself being disgruntled by the pixellated text etc.

VR in general is in the 640x480 realm as far as graphical resolution goes. Not only that, but the viewing angle is quite narrow (I always feel like I have a fishing snorkle on). Until they get true 'HD' VR, full frontal viewing range, and no cords, it's going to feel clunky. But that's OK. Although I'm used to my rift now, every time I use it I remind myself that just 10 years ago this crap was science fiction.