I've just built a system specifically for using rift but I thought i would try it on my old system first which is Gigabyte GA990 FXA - AMD FX8350 4.0 CPU - 32Gb Ballistix ram - Sapphire Radeon 7950 3gb graphics. Now although this is quite a powerful system it does not meet the minimum requirements for rift. But to my suprise the damn thing worked and worked very well, what also surprised me was it says on the box that rift requires 3 x 3.0 USB ports and 1 x 2.0 USB port but there are only 3 USB connectors on the rift and sensors which are all USB 3 types. Also setup failed when i used my USB 3 ports but it all came to life when I used USB 2 ports.
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas regarding these strange things.
Yes that would explain the USB 3 problem but I'm still puzzled as to why A. The box says you need 4 USB ports when there are only 3 USB connectors. B. Why it works so well on a system that does not meet the minimum requirements. Not that I'm complaining. But at least it should look good on my new RIG once I get the 1080 card in.
The 4th USB port would be for the X-box controller that used to be bundled with it.
There's nothing strange going on. The minimum requirements (which you essentially just about meet, a 280 is just a rebadged 7950) are really there to get the user to a particular base level of performance, and get decent USB support. Yes, the sensors can work at USB 2.0 speeds (which uses far less bandwidth and potentially has less accurate tracking as a result), but it still won't work with every USB controller; ASMedia controllers for example won't work, and in particular configurations you might see a lot of disconnects and reconnects.
All that said, while some of the experiences will still run okay on your old system, some games would really not run very well on it. As they say on that page: "Some Rift content may require a computer that exceeds Oculus’s minimum or recommended specs".
I'm not surprised at all. I had a FX-8350 with 16Gb RAM when I bought the Rift. I paired it with a GTX 1070 tough.
My experience on that system was excelent, and USB 3 from the Asmedia controller on that board (Asus with 970 chipset) worked from the start without problems, there was no need to buy the PCIe USB controller.
I think when you plug the new GTX 1080 you will be able to up graphical settings a lot and get a much enjoyable experience.