Oculus runtime .6 v .7 questions

I’m working on a VR game for the Oculus Rift using UE4 and I’ve run into a bit of a problem. With the increase in minimum specs from runtime .6 to .7, my development machines are nowhere close to meeting them (GTX 555 on desktop, 860M on laptop). With that said, it’s pretty clear that I’ll be stuck on .6 until I can upgrade hardware (which may be a while). So I’m looking for ways that I could still develop my game without the current runtime / newer versions of UE4 holding me back.

With that said, I have a few questions:

  • Is there a list somewhere of major changes that developers should be aware of from .6 to .7? (e.g. What should I expect to break when I make the jump?)
  • Would it be possible to develop a .7 rift game without having the rift functional on my machine? (I’m thinking along the lines of testing features out in .6, then crowdsourcing testing online for .7)
  • Is there any way for me to make use of new UE4 versions and still use runtime .6? (I’m currently using 4.76)
  • Anything else that I might not have considered yet?

Thanks!