Oculus Rift consumer model "spec" spilled

By Chris Burns/Updated: March 3, 2016 4:25 pm EST

Oculus VR recommends spec for their first consumer model PC-based Oculus Rift headset. These are the bits and pieces of PC power you'll need to run the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset – or what's recommended to run the machine, at least. If you've got a PC with less processing power than what you're about to see here, turn back now. Or forever hold your pixels. The image you see here is also the newest render (or very, VERY clean photo) of the consumer-model Rift.

The following specifications for a gaming PC are what Oculus VR recommends for a "full Rift experience." This means you can have less, but they suggest you don't. We suggest you have a whole lot more, too.

• 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

• Windows 7 SP1 or newer

Oculus has also released the PC SDK 0.6.0 for developers. You can download this update to the basic SDK for the consumer-level unit through the Oculus Developer Center.

This newest version of the SDK includes several major changes. These changes include:

• Compositor service

• Layers

• Removal of application-based distortion rendering

• Simplification of the API

It's simpler and it has layers! With layers, developers will have added flexibility as this support "enables developers to tune settings based on the characteristics and requirements of each layer."

Get in deep!

They've also suggested that they've ended focus on Linux and OS X at this point. Why? Because these platforms aren't going to be as viable through the future. Because there isn't really a Mac computer made to meet the specs they need.

"Our development for OS X and Linux has been paused in order to focus on delivering a high quality consumer-level VR experience at launch across hardware, software, and content on Windows. We want to get back to development for OS X and Linux but we don't have a timeline.
In the future, successful consumer VR will likely drive changes in GPUs, OSs, drivers, 3D engines, and apps, ultimately enabling much more efficient low-latency VR performance. It's an exciting time for VR graphics, and I'm looking forward to seeing this evolution."

This is the first update since April 29th, 2015. If you're not an Oculus VR developer, you should know this: they're moving very, very fast at this point.

Now that the consumer model has been announced, it's crunch time.