‘OS X support for Oculus Rift is up to Apple,’ says Palmer Luckey

Support for the Oculus Rift on Mac will happen when Apple “releases a good computer,” Palmer Luckey has said.

The Oculus CEO was speaking to Shack News when he revealed that the ball for VR support was entirely in Apple’s court, and that Oculus “would love to support Mac”.

The main problem, Luckey added, is that Apple hardware fails to put a focus on GPU performance – making even high-end Mac computers unable to support the smooth framerates vital for VR.

“If they ever release a good computer then we will do it,” he said bluntly.

"It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn’t prioritise high-end GPUs. 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."

On Windows, the consumer Oculus Rift model requires a graphics card equivalent or greater than an Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD R9 290.

In addition, an Intel i5-4590 CPU or greater is needed, with at least 8GB of RAM and two USB 3.0 ports.

Luckey added that Apple did experience a period of prioritising gaming performance with its home computers, but only “for a while, back in the day”.

He went on to acknowledge that the minimum specs and $600 price tag of the Rift were “more than people thought they would be”, before adding: “But at the same time, we’re maxing out our production capacity and exceeding all of our estimates.”