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Cycles X now has AMD GPU Support!

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AMD GPU Blender users rejoice! The AMD compiler team has contributed competitive support for Cycles X (and in effect Blender 3.0) rendering on AMD graphics cards, by way of its HIP framework and an update to their AMD drivers.

As part of its major rewrite giving its super-modern/super-powerful credentials, Cycles X had dropped OpenCL support for technical, maintenance, and performance reasons, effectively meaning that it lost AMD GPU support. AMD immediately jumped in to fill this void via its open source HIP API, and contributed the developers and resources needed to get it ready before the 3.0 release.

The HIP render device is already available in the latest Blender daily version, and this is what it looks like in the Cycles Render Devices dialgue in Blender's Preferences.

Make sure to download the latest AMD Radeon Software Driver Beta for HIP to work. Currently, AMD cards with the RDNA architecture are supported, with work being done on supporting older cards. Here is a list of currently supported cards provided by AMD:

  • AMD Radeon™ PRO W6800
  • AMD Radeon™ 6900 XT
  • AMD Radeon™ 6800 XT
  • AMD Radeon™ 6800
  • AMD Radeon™ 6700 XT
  • AMD Radeon™ 6600 XT
  • AMD Radeon™ 6600

AMD has has a great track record with Blender, not only funding its development fund but consistently providing resources and development time to contribute to the software.

Check out the links below for more information:

About the Author

Mario Hawat

Mario Hawat is a Lebanese 3D artist, writer, and musician currently based in Paris. He is a generalist with a special focus on environments, procedural and generative artworks. Open to freelance work.

8 Comments

  1. That's a premium selection of RDNA2 GPUs that virtually no one has or can afford at current retail prices, while the vast majority of existing AMD GPU user base won't have this for months or ever. What a backwards way to roll out a new feature, essentially taking away GPU rendering from anyone with an older gen AMD GPU. Who is this done for?

    #AyyMD #FineWine

    • I imagine it would be far easier to land a project like this at your employer if you focus on the high-earning products first. Also:

      > essentially taking away GPU rendering from anyone with an older gen AMD GPU

      Eh, no. They'll just have to wait longer.

      • > Eh, no. They'll just have to wait longer.

        At this point nobody promised support for older GPUs, so it is not confirmed yet that it will ever run with anything older than RDNA2.

    • Not following the logic. RTX cards are also extremely hard to get, but does it mean blender should suspend work on Optix optimizations or utilization of RT cores?

      Also strange to see complaints that free software gets added more features that you just happen to not use.

  2. Beta Blender and beta driver, looks like HIP is a new CUDA variant that can work with AMD cards, without a complete code re-write for the old OpenCL. Hopefully the first step to break the Nvidia CUDA monopoly. More AMD cards and maybe Intel cards should be added soon...

  3. Why take so long with AMD? Is it because the Blender guys or the AMD guys fault? It shouldnt have take this long for something like this. I assume now still missing features, incompatible when next version of blender or next AMD card.

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