cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

OS X + Linux "on hold"

mindabuse
Explorer
From the Oculus Blog post https://www.oculus.com/blog/powering-the-rift/

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.


This might be the ideal spot to dump some thoughts which might come off a little rant-y.

Oculus, you may want to consider renaming the SDK "Oculus Windows SDK 0.6.0.0" so people have a clearer understanding.

I get it. Oculus needs to pare down to focus on "the majority".

The DK2 was announced as supporting OS X and Linux —  and people developing on those platforms waited for the SDK to catch up (weeks or months after their kits were paid for and arrived).

Today, SDK v0.6.0 is released and with no prior warning OS X and Linux are put on indefinite hold.

I bought a DK2 and can no longer develop because my platform has been deprecated. Windows and Galaxy mobile phones appear to be all they're interested in supporting. If the consumer product ships in 2016, how long will it take for the bugs to be ironed out to a point where they devote resources to non-Windows platforms?

I understand that I am in the minority, but it's still a shitty series of events. I had hopes to continue adding VR support to open source projects — especially when the SDK smoothed out. But not under these circumstances which lock me out. I bought something with the intention of developing on a non-Windows platform and am stuck in time (March 26, 2015) with an out-of-date, eventually unsupported runtime + SDK — with its own issues that I don't care to debug or work around (ghosting/smearing, lack of "direct-to-rift", etc.). And then when the consumer unit ships, I am still left out in the cold until who-knows-when?

The bottom line is this: Oculus is targeting a specific spec for current-generation hardware - and only one operating system - which could hinder a vast catalog of open source projects that can benefit from integrating multi-platform VR. Someone doesn't think OS X or Linux users have the current generation of hardware to enjoy some "ideal" current generations games? You've just doomed them from experiencing older titles that could be revived (no pun intended) with VR support that run perfectly fine on hardware that doesn't meet your specifications.

I feel like Oculus is trying to turn their product in to a platform a bit prematurely. What is the rift? A display and an input tracking device. There's no GPU or CPU. Still feels a bit over-reaching to me (even though Oculus also happens to have a content team).

Unfortunate.
22 REPLIES 22

baxyp
Honored Guest
It would be fair for the Oculus to stop now using Macs on their promo pictures. Good for ads, but not to develop for? What's that on the 0.6.0 beta SDK picture for example? https://developer.oculus.com

xrgo
Explorer
Hello! As a Linux user/developer using Oculus... all I can say: this is really really sad :cry:
I just hope CV is compatible with the old sdk that works on linux =(, or that they release a simplified version of the sdk that give us sensors support, I don't care much about rendering (I can do my own implementation, It wouldn't be perfect but It would work), but sensors/tracking/positional, that's closed source, If Oculus don't give us the possibility to use that part of the sdk on linux with newer hardware that would be really bad :cry:

FluffyFreak
Honored Guest
I think the word everyone is missing here is "paused", it's not cancelled, binned, abandoned or stopped it's just "paused".

So OSX and Linux support will be slightly delayed.

xrgo
Explorer
yes, I know its "paused", but until now every Linux sdk has come delayed from the windows version... and it wasn't "paused". So if they announce that its now "paused" and they "don’t have a timeline", I can only imagine the delay 😐 .
I want to believe that will be weeks or a couple of months... but we know that's not going to be truth.

Anyways, I can't blame them, its business!, I am just hoping for the best 😃

lmaceleighton
Honored Guest
I would like to think that what going on is similar to the "Blizzard Entertainment" system of release, which is: They won't release something until it is ready.

Like the Rift for example. They would not release the Oculus Rift until it is ready, and they have not. They remain "Tight-Lipped" until they have something real to report, instead of weekly boring updates, that amount to nothing other than "We are working on the problem". I personal like the way Oculus does things.

I AM waiting for OSX and Linux too. While I happen to also use Windows, mainly, I do have need for both other platforms to work, as I plan to port my VR game to both eventually. This is pretty normal for the way it goes with cross-platform compatibility development. In-fact almost every game engine that I have helped work on over the last 15 years, with a few small exceptions, almost always get the windows version smoothed out first. I am sure all will be good....(I thought Linux users were patient?) 😄

~B :ugeek:

Anonymous
Not applicable
This is indeed disappointing for my company as we are a Mac shop. My only concern would be whether we can still build Gear VR apps on a Mac. Does anyone know how Mac development for Gear VR will be affected? To be honest I stopped developing for DK2 in December when I got my Gear VR since the OS X SDK is limited.

haagch
Explorer
"EarlGrey" wrote:
Linux is a schizophrenic platform to develop for, with a tiny desktop userbase and lots of driver issues, why bother?

That's a bogus excuse. Graphics drivers are regularly terribly broken on windows for new game releases and need to be "fixed" by the driver developers. Then, what exactly are those issues anyway? With the new (working) unity plugin I played a bit and everything worked fine, couldn't find a driver issue.

"FluffyFreak" wrote:
it's just "paused".
So OSX and Linux support will be slightly delayed.

I got my dk2 in september. I had to wait until december until oculus released an sdk with actual linux support. (the release in november had "experimental" support but it only worked on the proprietary nvidia driver).
I had to wait until a few days ago to get an actual working unity plugin. In the mean time I have seen several developers trying to provide a linux version, unaware that there was no working linux support and their builds couldn't work. https://reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2y ... ro/cpbx17w
Oculus' audio sdk "supports" linux, but none of the middleware plugins (like a unity plugin) that developers are supposed to use is available for linux. Developers who are trying to create a linux version of their unity game using the audio sdk have to put in extra effort to disable it on linux: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comment ... _os_x_and/
Oculus and Epic have to this day not bothered to add linux rift support in unreal engine.

This is how oculus' normal development looks when it is not paused.

Judge by yourself how "slightly delayed" the linux releases will be when they say they have paused development.

Anonymous
Not applicable
"EarlGrey" wrote:
Linux is a schizophrenic platform to develop for, with a tiny desktop userbase and lots of driver issues, why bother?


Linux doesn't have driver issues, developers write crappy drivers. I'd rather deal with a kernel module than with COM objects and the windows registry

I haven't looked at the sdk, but I think there is a lot more to it than a display and HID device, which is probably a Bad Idea™ -- The world has enough middle ware

matte
Honored Guest
This is quite disappointing news.

Re. Macs being "powerful" enough - I think it's a mistake to narrowly think of all VR content as being AAA games. There are plenty of other interesting opportunities for VR that don't require super high definition realistic graphics.

Much of the interaction design/creative coding/experimental arts community use Macs, and it's through here that I think we'll find some of the more interesting uses of VR that will push the medium forward, not just yet another racing game or FPS shooter.

thorp
Honored Guest
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.


Before I read your quote, I was under the impression that 6.0 would be like the SDK 0.4 release (AKA the Mac would-be supported but it would just take a little longer). However the quote makes me think that we will have a long wait. If Oculus is putting aside development to focus on Windows for their launch, the timeline looks like the Mac won't be considered again until after the 1Q16 release. The lack of clarity definitely kills our Mac development plans.

I will still be using Unity on the Mac for environment design, character development, etc. I'll use the standard Unity camera rig for the early development stages. The later parts of the production process will include OVR_Rig_Stuff in builds on the PC (or a duel boot mac). I've been moving Unity projects between OS X and PC environments for a couple months and it works reasonably well.

Clearly the Oculus move to Microsoft-only was a surprise, but the workaround still allows access to our Apple design resources.