Cycles X now has AMD GPU Support!
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.
Cycles for @AMD GPUs is back! The AMD compiler team did a tremendous job on contributing competitive support for Cycles rendering on AMD graphics cards. Beta available now! https://t.co/tde8aOiyga #b3d #AMD
— Blender Developers ? (@BlenderDev) November 15, 2021
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.
We've got great news for @Blender artists who use AMD GPUs!
We have been working very closely with #Blender to improve support for GPU #rendering in #Cycles in #b3d 3.0.
You can find all the details here:https://t.co/sErPSIwkUq
— AMD GPUOpen (@GPUOpen) November 15, 2021
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
+1 and for the record one of the most fun projects and communities to work on!
— Brian (@bhsavery) November 15, 2021
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:
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.
Brian Savery writes:
“The driver team committed to support only RDNA2 cards (6X00 series). We’re working with blender to test and enable other cards as well. We’re basically working backwards for obvious reasons. Hopefully by 3.0 release more will be enabled.”
This is a little ambiguous, but I interpreted it as ‘We committed to 6X00 cards but will try to support other types as well”).
https://blenderartists.org/t/cycles-hip-for-amd/1333869/9?u=bartv
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.
CUDA support is not disabled in Blender 3.0 for any card older than RTX 3000, how can’t you follow that logic?
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…
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.