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Oculus finally announced Touch Controllers for the Rift
Together with the announcement of the much anticipated Touch Controllers, Oculus just lowered PC requirements to play with the Rift. Now that’s good news.
Oculus held its annual Connect event to bring in developers for updates on what the company has been working on. And indeed, it’s up to impress the public with some new development to catch up with their main competition, the HTC Vive.
Touch Controllers
First off is the long-awaited Touch grip controllers that have axial relativity, triggers, joysticks and six action buttons in total. The package comes with an extra tracking sensor record. Customers have the option to purchase extra sensors for room-scale VR for $79 each. These controllers are available for pre-order right now at $199 a pair. Pre-orders come bundled with two titles. An extended range of 35 Touch games will launch December 6.
Oculus Earphones
Oculus Earphones were also revealed today. Pre-orders begin on October 10 and ship beginning December 6.
New (and lowered) PC Specs for Oculus Rift
Oculus also reduced the computer spec requirements for Rift through AMD’s Asynchronous Spacewarp technology — essentially processor-level subspace warping — that can bring real framerates down to 45fps while the rendered product looking as good as double that. A new Rift-ready build from Cyberpower was introduced with a price tag of $499. Other OEMs will follow with their own products.
The specifications require very low hardware to apparently run VR with the Rift:
- CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 / AMD FX-4350
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 960
- RAM: 8GB
- HDMI: 1 x HDMI 1.3
- USB: 1 x USB 3.0 + 2 x USB 2.0
- OS: Windows 8
A New Headset?
Oculus also showed off its Santa Cruz standalone VR headset. Nope, it’s not a production unit but a prototype. From the looks of the video the company has posted, the product seems fairly light while demonstrating remarkable tracking using on-headset tech. The project is nowhere near finished, but it’s good to see the competitive juices flowing.
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