New Imaging Technology Allows the Oculus Rift to Run on Slower PCs

Virtual reality is fantastic but the hardware requirements of headsets are making it very difficult for people with lower-end hardware to enjoy this unique experience. Fortunately, at least as far as the Oculus Rift is concerned, there is some progress being made, as the Oculus Connect 3 event that took place last month briefly introduced a brand new imaging technology that aims to reduce hardware requirements without compromising on image quality. Dubbed Asynchronous Spacewarp, the tech complements Asynchronous Timewarp – a tech that was designed to smooth out the user’s head rotation by generating extrapolated frames from previous frames created by a VR application.

In turn, Asynchronous Spacewarp can smooth out pretty much everything else, such as Touch controller movement, character movement, the player’s positional movement, and camera movement. To be more specific, whenever the application’s frame rate drops below 90 FPS, these two technologies kick in and are able to deliver an improved visual experience. Therefore, if you have a relatively powerful PC, these features are not likely to be activated at all, but users with lower-end hardware will definitely benefit from their implementation. Oculus VR needed at least a Nvidia GTX 970 or a Radeon 290 graphics card complemented by an Intel i5 4590 processor in order to work properly, but with the implementation of Asynchronous Timewarp and Spacewarp, these requirements have dropped to a GTX 960 or a Radeon RX 470 card complemented by an Intel Core i3-6100 / AMD FX-4350 CPU.