Oculus helmet adjustment will support cheaper computers

2016 is the first year of virtual reality, but the general feeling of consumers is a word - "expensive." The Oculus (part of Facebook) and HTC helmets need to be paired with high-end gaming computers, and the cost of the computer is more than $1,000.

According to the latest news from foreign media, Oculus has adjusted the helmet and will be able to support cheaper low-end computers in the future. The threshold for users will be reduced.

Among HTC, Sony and Oculus three full-featured helmet manufacturers, HTC and Oculus need to connect external high-end gaming computers, Sony needs to connect its own game consoles, the lowest cost of use. The total cost of HTC and Oculus is nearly $2,000, which makes many consumers look down on it.

Oculus has announced that it has made technical adjustments to the operation of related virtual reality content, and the frame rate of future content can be reduced by half. This means that helmets can rely on more low-performance computers as a source of content.

According to the earliest technical standards, the game computer connected to the Oculus Rift helmet, the graphics card is at least the NVIDIA GTX 970, at least with the Intel Core i5 processor, and according to the latest adjustments, the hardware requirements of the computer are reduced to the GTX 960 graphics card and Intel Core i3 processor. (But the old and new standards require at least 8GB of computer memory).

At the beginning of the Oculus helmet release, the recommended connected gaming computer was generally priced at more than $1,000. Coupled with helmets and the latest controllers, consumers must be able to experience virtual reality with $2,000.

After lowering the threshold, Oculus officially said that the CyberPowerPC desktop, which is priced at only $499, has also passed the audit of the connected helmet, but the product is not yet on sale.

In the virtual reality market, Oculus and HTC are very similar competitors. After Oculus lowered the computer hardware requirements, whether HTC will adjust the Vive is still unknown.

For the high cost of virtual reality complete hardware of nearly 2,000 US dollars, the technology media has also pointed out that too high prices will curb the development of the market. At this stage, virtual reality is still only a niche product for technology enthusiasts.

In addition, some manufacturers have realized that the current virtual reality helmet has a barrier to entry that is too high and the cable connection is too cumbersome. It has begun to develop a fully independent virtual reality helmet that does not require an external computer.

At a development conference in October, Facebook head Zuckerberg revealed that Oculus is developing an independent virtual reality helmet that does not require access to external phones and personal computers. In July, the US technology news site Engadget quoted people familiar with the matter, saying that Google is also developing an independent virtual reality helmet that does not require the purchase of external hardware.

It should be pointed out that in China and other markets, there are many virtual reality helmets connected to smartphones, priced at only a few dozen dollars. The media generally believes that this is just a cheap device that provides a low-end entry-level experience. Because of its low performance, it will not become the mainstream of the virtual reality market in the future. (Compile / Dawn)