Optimized Blender 2.42 and 2.42a for Windows and Linux

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bl_242a_optimized.pngWith the release of 2.42a, we all got many new features, but perhaps you want more?

For the power hungry, Graphicall.Org features now Windows optimized versions of Blender 2.42. Among the many additions you have general optimization, SSE and SSE2 enabled versions. Both in two flavours, with installer or as a zip file. According to the build maintainer “mchs3d” this is Blender 2.42 release built with extra optimization”.

And for those looking for builds pushing the latest technology, “Adkiller” has released his now-famous Windows x64 (64-bit) builds for Blender 2.42a and YafRay 0.0.9 on graphicall with SSE3 optimizations (SSE2 will follow soon). He has also started a thread for discussion on his improvements.

So, if you have Windows, run over to Graphicall.Org and speed up your renders (select Windows in the first list and BF in the second one).

Yet, if you are a Linux Geek like me, you should be a bit sad by now, well, don’t be. For those of you out there using Ubuntu Dapper Drake I took the time to build the necessary debs for all of you to enjoy.

Since everyone loves optimized builds and taking into account that Ubuntu is the most used distro out there I have built optimized versions of Blender 2.42a. Even more, I have also built the latest ffmpeg and x264 libraries and provide the proper debs for them too.

What this means is that these builds offer full ffmpeg support (xvid, h264, mp3, aac) and come in the following flavours:

  • Generic i586
  • Pentium 4 optimized for SSE2
  • Athlon XP optimized for 3DNow!
  • Centrino optimized for SSE2
  • Athlon64 optimized for SSE2 (32 bit mode)

Happy now? Then head over to my website and download the debs.

Use these builds at your own risk, the author declines any responsability for any misuse or loss of data due to the use of these builds.

Note1: The Ubuntu versions do not come with blenderplayer binary, use the binary that comes with the official builds instead.
Note2: The optimizations are only for Blender deb, ffmpeg and x264 are built as generic for compatibility with all builds and are available as both binary and dev libraries(packages with dev on the name).

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    • http://www.intellidesign.org Prince

      I’ve got just two words:

      Bo-Ya! :P

      Daniel

    • http://www.joelsedano.com Joel

      Tanks for the debs!

    • pixelNate

      Thanks for the debs.

    • http://www.stani.be stani

      Thanks for providing the debs. Any chance of having these in synaptic. Or do you have a own repository which I can add to my sources.list?

    • BeBraw

      Thanks man! Great job!

      I would love to see these in synaptic.

    • Dave

      I’m using an Athlon 64. I’m using Windows XP (32 bit) and Windows Vista Beta 2 (64 Bit). Which version(s) of Blender should I be installing?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Eugene (etr9j)

      As we’ve establish with that render time post the SSE optimized builds for windows always out-do the base install as far as rendering times go. I’ve been a fan of the Windows x64 build since Ad’s first 64-bit build and I know this build will not disappoint.

      Of course, I would love to know both mchs3d and Adkiller’s compiling flags since all my compiled builds with “optimization” never render any faster than the standard build!

    • http://www.blendernation.com Eugene (etr9j)

      @Dave
      Are you dual booting the two different OS’s? Vista-64 should be able to handle both the 64 and 32 bit builds. XP-32 can handle only the 32-bit builds – I know obvious. What should make your choice of which to use is dependant which OS you use the most and if you are in an enviroment where you are constantly sharing/modifying .blend files of others. My suggestion is that if it’s just you or your whole team using the 64-bit version, then the performance will help. But if you are the only user of a 64-bit build in a group of 32-bit people, then you might want to consider that there me be some yet unseen compatibility issues between the two bit types. Personally? I am all for using Blender to the Xtreme with the x64 build (there’s no “E” on the front of Xtreme so you know it’s *really* extreme).

    • Dave

      Thankyou Eugene. You have been very helpful. It’s just me. No team. And, yes, dual-booting. I think I’ll use both. That might help me test for compatibility problems.

    • rcas

      No Synaptic sorry, I don’t know how to setup the folders yet so it can look as a repository. Perhaps someone can get that up, I don’t mind if someone posts my debs elsewhere.

      Else, if someone wants to help me out setting it up, I can do that too.

      :)

    • rcas

      People keep asking me about the sources for Blender 2.42a, seems like they aren’t available in blender.org anymore, since CVS is tagged now I think the team thinks that people know how to get it.

      Well, guess not, so, I decided to upload the sources of Blender 2.42a with my personal scons user-config.py file that contains all optimization lines I used for the builds, just uncomment the ones you want and comment the others, it is pretty straight forward.

      Have fun,

      – Rui –

      PS: the source is in the same folder as the deb files, uploaded 1 minute ago.

    • Robin

      You said that it was optimized for 64 bits, Eugene. But can I use it on 32 bits computer?

    • http://www.antidrm.org cowdude

      Can’t wait for 2.42 32bit sse3! :)

    • http://www.blendernation.com Eugene (etr9j)

      @Robin
      Sorry, the 64bit build for Windows can’t run on a 32bit machine. But if you are looking for the best optimized 32bit build, the mchs3d SSE2 builds on graphicall are *the* 32bit builds of choice – they render way faster than the standard build. I don’t see him posting 2.42a there yet, but I’m sure they’re on their way. Of course you need a chip that has sse2… but he has also posted sse builds too.

    • mmu

      I have an AMD cpu on Windows XP. I take it this SSE stuff is for Intel cpus therefore I should try a 32bit no SSE build only?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Eugene (etr9j)

      @mmu
      Some AMD chips have the SSE2 instructions set. Which optimized build is right for you (SSE or SSE2 or SSE3) depends on what your chip can handle. For chips that have SSE2, you can check out wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2#CPUs_supporting_SSE2.

    • Michael Crawford

      if you’re a linux geek you would have just recompiled the damn source with -O3 -march=yourproc bla bla appended to your cflags. Really folks it’s not that hard (given a relatively large amount of troubleshooting time). Just poke through the gcc manual (man gcc).

    • Michael Crawford

      oh wait you did… nevermind.

    • rcas

      @Michael : I used -O3 and -mtune instead of -march, it isn’t as optimized as -march but it does generate i386 compatible binaries, its safer and still almost as fast as -march. But if people really want top notch I can also build a new set using -march and some more tweaks, though I think it isn’t necessary, just to save 1 second in a two minutes render.

    • mrCarnivore

      I can’t seem to find the 3Dnow! optimized builds for Athlon XP…

    • Michael Crawford

      @Rcas : Yeah i know. All in all doing things like -msse mfpumath=sse,387 are mostly too risky for anything but in-house. That being said, have you tried such optimizations with blender? It’s not really necessary for me since i build from source but i’d be interested in knowing which optimizations are known to be “safe” for blender. What would be useful to me is a g5 optimized build for mac (since i don’t, but probably should, build from source on my mac). Although i realize ppc is a dying arch, the vector processing abilities were vastly under-utilized. Do you know if whoever does the mac builds uses any apple-specific gcc features like auto-vectorization etc…?

    • rcas

      @mrCarnivore: no? have you browsed the folders??? it is only available for linux the 3dNow! Athlon XP build, else use sse builds.
      its here -> http://ruicampos.com/fl_tmp/debian/ubuntu-dapper/2.42a/athlon-xp/

      @Michael: Mac is not really my field, I can’t afford one and even if I could, with the latest additions to Gnome (XGL and so forth) I don’t know if it appeals to me anymore. Linux is far more powerfull and far less expensive, so I can’t really comment of Mac :) .

      On Linux, using -O3 never gave me an error and -mtune=pentium-m is far more stable in my Centrino, due to some specific issues that Centrino has, the compile as pentium-m seems to solve them, it mostly has to due with heat and speed on processing some operations, less time means less heat, which also ends in more stability.

      The -sse2 flag is quite stable too, although I don’t use -mfpumath as it gave me some issues on the previous GCC4 bundled with Ubuntu Breezy. Haven’t tested -sse3, need a Core Duo for that, maybe in a month or so I can test it.

      But one thing is for sure, when you use either -sse (2 or 3) or -3dnow and combine it with -mtune, it will be fairly optimized, all other tweaks won’t make that much difference and will cost you stability wise.

      Yet, if you want some more speed and not tweak that much for stability reasons, use -march instead of -mtune. -march includes -mtune and some more optimizations while trying to keep things as stable as possible, though it won’t compile i386 compatible binaries, meaning it will be for that specific CPU, no derivates should use that.

    • Robin

      I’m not completely sure but I think I’ve seen an english graphicall. But when I look at Blender3D.com list of sites they doesn’t list it and if I remember right the adree is http://www.graphicall.com but if I try that then I’ll come to a deutch site. That’s not a big issue that the site is on deutch cause I can read some deutch but not very well. Also I couldn’t find anything Blender related there.

    • rcas

      @Robin: it is http://www.graphicall.org , but it may be slow to load as there is too much people accessing it right now, keep trying every 30 minutes and you will get there.

    • delic

      For a centrino and a P4 HT I should get a SSE2 optimized build, right ? Centrino is considered as a pentium M I guess …
      But what is the speedup really ?
      For rendering only or is the usabilty speedup too ?

      thanks

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      Hi!

      I have posted a copy of this message on Blender.org:

      I’m using Blender for now a little more than two years (since 2.31 I believe), and I used in the past several releases of “Antares” optimized builds.

      Used separately these versions worked fine, but after a big render session done on several computers using both the official version and the optimized one I had a bad surprise. When I started merging the rendered sequences I discovered that the lighting (brightness) appeared very different, and I had to render again half of the work!

      After that I stopped using the optimized version.

      I know that I could make a test myself, but have you noticed a a visible difference between pictures rendered with the recent optimized version and the official releases ?

      Philippe.

    • rcas

      @delic : Pentium-m is for Centrino / Core Duo, for Core Duo you also have SSE3, but I haven’t compiled a specific version for Core Duo yet. For Pentium4 there is a specific release. Render speed-ups can be almost twice as fast. Visual it is a tiny bit faster, specially when you bake something that usually takes much more time it can almost be twice as fast.

      @ROUBAL: I did get some strange lighting errors when using Tile rendering, but that was before Ton redid the Render Engine, now it works fine, other then that I don’t recall any issue, but I wasn’t looking for this specifically. Does this occur always, cause it may have to do with some special light scenario. I can do a render of two files tonight, one with Official Blender and the other with my Optimized build and compare both to see if there is any difference.

    • http://3d-synthesis.com ROUBAL

      @rcas : Thank you. I will also make a trial myself as soon as possible.

      Philippe.

    • delic

      Thanks a lot rcas !
      I will test the p4 release as soon as I can .

      The p4 HT is really the best machine i’ve seen to work with 3d apps .
      I can launch 3 or 4 renders tasks without having slow down on other tasks . Incredible !
      It handles tasks very fine . I tetsted the rendering speed with basic blender cube scene with AO, between my centrino and the P4(3 years older) !
      With 1 render at a time is the centrino(1.73ghz, but considered as a 3.4Ghz) about 10% faster as the p4 HT (3.06Ghz), OK, as expected …
      But by increasing render tasks (3 renders of the same basic scene at a time ) on both machines, the P4 works about 30% faster ! and still can watch tv or surf the web on it without any slowdown …

      So I’m very interested by your otpimised builds to compare again !
      and since the nodes rendering increases render times …

    • http://pitel.borec.cz Pitel

      Are the binaries for Linux available somewhere? Because a) I’m not sure if I’ll be able to use .deb on Fedora Core 5 b) I already have standard i386 build, so i don’t need the scripts, documentation etc.

    • http://tioilmo.bravehost.com/ Tio Ilmo

      Who is me to ask something else in Blender 3D? Ia m only a begginer but I´d like to know if is it in your plans include in the sound generator files in .MP3, .WMA, .MID to include in our animations ?

      What can I do to use this kind of sound ?

      Thanks in advance …

      Tio Ilmo

    • rcas

      @Pitel: It is fully dynamic, that’s why I released it as deb files, to check all dependencies and guarantee it will work on all systems. I can post the binaries, but you will be looking for trouble as it has some dependencies attached to it. You can always use “alien” for the conversion. http://www.linuxvalley.it/encyclopedia/ldp/manpage/man1/alien.1.php

      @Tio Ilmo: In the sequencer there is now an option to load HDAudio If I recall correctly the name, you can load anything that ffmpeg can read. For export if you select FFMPEG you have some new options too.

    • Daniel

      Can i have a Win32 3DNow+SSE build? Please?

    • rcas

      @Daniel: SSE is faster in 99% of the cases, even in Athlon XP, I know, I have one. And it will only use either 3DNow! or SSE (I think in Windows this applies).

    • delic

      Great ! it works fine, really speedup the render on every file I tested …

    • Diego Penalver

      Hi to all,
      I`m relatively new to Blender and an ignorant in technical stuff.
      I have a Pentium IV 3GHZ (dual core, I think?) with a Windows XP OS.
      Would appreciate guidance to which build is compatible with my system and if it is useful to install.

      Thanks in advance..

      Diego

    • rcas

      @Diego: Safest bet is one build of graphicall.org with SSE2 optimization.

    • butelo

      thankyou very much for this debs… :)

    • mmu

      @Eugene
      Thank you for your advice Eugene. I have a Barton Xp2500. I will try an SSE build and if that doesn’t work then just a standard build.

    • mrCarnivore

      @rcas: Thx, but I was looking for the windows version fo the 3D-Now! Didn’t read the article properly.

    • Mario

      Can you post the gcc switches you use for generate the optimized DEBs?. I’d like to compile blender from the source with these switches (for an athlon-xp and a pentium4). Thanks in advance,

      Mario

    • rcas

      @Mario : It is mentioned in the comments and it is in the blender source file in the server, also mentioned here. You will need to add it in two different places for all Blender to use it, so I would advice checking my scons user-config.py file that is in the blender-source.tar.gz file in the server.

      Also, if you want all switches, the GCC manual is the best place to start:
      http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.0.3/gcc/i386-and-x86_002d64-Options.html#i386-and-x86_002d64-Options

      Have fun building,

      – Rui –

    • Sanne

      rcas, for setting up a repository, this site might help:
      http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto/howtos/debrepository

      It explains things for Debian, but it should be easy to modify it for Ubuntu. I used it to set up a small local repository on my hd for Ubuntu Dapper, but as is said at the end, it can be used for remote access repositories as well.

      If you like to know what I did for my local repository, just drop me an email.

      Sanne

    • mchs3d

      I’ll get to the latest builds soon enough. Right now, I’m deprived of most internet, so expect a couple more weeks of delay. Sorry! Also, I appreciate the enthusiasm!

    • rcas

      @Sanne: will look into it once I get time, hopefuly this week.

    • bodi

      i got:
      blender-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libpython2.4.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
      but libpython2.4.so.1.0 is in: /usr/lib64/libpython2.4.so.1.0

    • rcas

      @bodi: These are 32 Bits builds, meaning they only run in 32 Bits. You surely have a nice 64 bit system, and even though I could compile Blender as 64 bit I don’t have 64 bit python. Sorry.

      Perhaps someone cares to donate a 64 bit system, hehe….

    • Michael Crawford

      @bodi your problem is that blender is looking for libpython2.4.so.1.0 in /usr/lib. If you are on fedora you can install the 32 bit version of the python rpm and it should run fine (you may have to install 32 bit rpms for other packages as well). There are 64 bit 242 rpms running around but afaik no 242a 64 bit rpms anywhere. When in doubt just download the source tarball and compile it yourself. Note: symlinking libpython into /usr/lib will not work.

    • bodi

      @rcas&Michael Crawford: sorry, i didn’t really looked at it, you’re right, i tried it with Ubuntu AMD64bit. Now running fine on Ubuntu 32bit and it is slightly faster (http://www.eofw.org/bench/):
      1:55.34 2.42 standard
      1:42.18 2.42a optimized build for athlon64
      1:24.04 (2.42 compiled on Ubuntu 6.06 AMD64-K8-smp)
      Thanx for your help!

    • Ahriman

      Just wondering if the athlon-xp .deb will be suitable for dual-core amd processors. I am running an SMP kernel, and would prefer not to have to compile from source (I will if I have to, but if I dont … )

    • rcas

      @Ahriman : For Dual Core systems use the Athlon64 deb (it is build for 32 bits).

    • http://www.rockingtiger.com/lee Lee

      For those who asked for Synaptic support, you don’t need anyone to put them online for you. Download the debs and make a local APT repository with these few commands:

      mkdir ~/debs/
      cd ~/debs
      wget http://ruicampos.com/fl_tmp/debian/ubuntu-dapper/2.42a/athlon64/blender-2.42.a5ubuntu2.deb
      (you will also have to download all the ffmpeg stuff to the same place)
      cd ..
      dpkg-scanpackages debs /dev/null > debs/Packages
      sudo echo “file:/home// debs/” >> /etc/apt/sources.list
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get install blender

      taken from the APT howto:
      http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-basico.en.html#s-dpkg-scanpackages

      -lee

    • trthing

      I am having some trouble making it run on an athlon64 running Ubuntu Dapper 6.06.

      Clicking on its installed icon makes *nothing* happen: is there a thorough walkthrough for a clean install of it anywhere?

      Thanks for the deb anyway

    • trthing

      Oh, now I see I have the same problem as [bodi] here: how did you solve the issue (running Ubuntu 6.06 on AMD 64

    • ltpaul

      For a guide on configuring your own apt repository look here:
      http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/286

    • rcas

      Hi guys,

      Sorry for not answering sooner.
      I just got back, got married and moved to my new home. I still don’t have Internet at my new home, maybe this week.

      @ trthing : My compilation is for Athlon64 CPUs running under a 32 Bit system. But I think you can solve the problem installing the 32Bit Python instead of the 64Bit.

      I will try to create a repository for my next builds, perhaps in a month or so, can’t promise anything with BConf so near.

    • http://www.freaks.jenus.nl qedqubit

      Great !
      i was just planning to overwrite my suse partitions and throw kubuntu on them !
      (i just got a amdXP2400 with a atiFireGL4 ! too bad there are no linux drivers, so my p3-800 is gonna be kubuntu-blender)
      off topic:– can anyone point me to explanations on how to use dual-monitors with blender?
      like i saw in the making of Elephants Dream ?
      i got geforcemx-64mb in agp and matroxMillenniumII-4mb in pci,
      but even with a commandline startup of blender I only get blackness in the matrox-monitor.
      So if i install something old like redhat7 i might be able to use the FireGL4, but i’d have an antique OS that doesnt now anything about 3Dnow! right ?

    • Milky

      It’s nice that someone’s making these builds, but to be honest they should be in aptitude repos. :(

    • http://jasonderose.org/ Jason DeRose

      You need to add a dependency on libopenexr2c2a. It is a dependency of yafray, so I’m sure that’s how you missed it. But blender 2.42 wont start without it:

      blender-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libHalf.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

      That’s a minor detail, though. Thanks for the great packages! You should consider helping to maintain the official package in Edgy (blender moved from main back to universe since Dapper).

    • http://www.antidrm.org cowdude

      the site is ddown again

    • http://www.ruicampos.com rcas

      @cowdude: which one ? mine ? I just checked and it is up, can you try again ?
      Yet, if you are refering to Graphicall, yes, it is down for the moment, but expected to return as soon as possible.

    • http://ciit.net.pk atif shah

      hi,
      for many days i want to install the blender in my system having O/S linux bt i didnt get any help for any where if any one know how to install it so please jst tell me um very thakx full to you

    • pixelnate

      @Atif: You don’t need to install it with linux. Just extract the tar file and launch Blender. It’s just that easy. If you have installed Blender through a repository it will still be there, but you’ll have the new one where ever you put it.