RobDJs Project Blog: Setting up my dev environment

Now that the Unity Free issues has been addressed, I couldn't wait so I started setting up my dev environment on my old dev laptop. I intend to use this to do the majority of my work. If the hardware specs can't keep up then I'll make use of my development machine at home instead as it's more powerful.

According to the SDK, an Intel HD 5000 should be powerful enough to run minimal demo's. Meaning demo's with the minimum performance requirement. If our project becomes more complex however we'll require more powerful hardware to get around latency issues and frame dropping. These issues could lead to problems including 'jitter' while moving and potential motion sickness. Dropping frames in VR, according to the Oculus Connect conference is a big deal when compared to traditional 2D screened games. Any frame drops are very noticeable and will detract from the overall VR experience in a large way. Something to keep in mind.

The SDK documentation lists the follow minimum requirements as a guideline:

Windows: 7, 8, or 8.1
MacOS: 10.8+
Linux: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
2.0+ GHz processor
2 GB system RAM
Direct3D10 or OpenGL 3 compatible video card.

My system specs are pretty close to these specs (2.6GHz dual core with 3 GB RAM, Radeon HD 4330). I'll have to keep an eye on performance while testing, deploying and using the engine. Worst case, I use my game dev environment I have set up at home and use my laptop as a glorified USB stick with software installed!

I now have the Oculus SDK, Runtime and Unity Integration up and running. With the first demo, compiled in Unity and run from the engine itself rather than the simple deployment demo. This means the next step I need to take is working on my very own simple demo project. I could, if allowed, reuse one of my old prototypes and just tweak it to work on the Rift. As I'm using a ready made game engine this should be fast and easy.