Editing Blender (software) (section)

=====GPU rendering=====
Cycles supports [[GPU]] rendering, which is used to speed up rendering times. There are three GPU rendering modes: [[CUDA]], which is the preferred method for older [[Nvidia]] graphics cards; [[OptiX]], which utilizes the hardware ray-tracing capabilities of Nvidia's [[Turing (microarchitecture)|Turing architecture]] & [[Ampere (microarchitecture)|Ampere architecture]]; [[Heterogeneous-compute Interface for Portability|HIP]], which supports rendering on [[Advanced Micro Devices|AMD]] [[Radeon]] graphics cards; and [[oneAPI (compute acceleration)|oneAPI]] for [[Intel]] and [[Intel Arc]] GPUs. The toolkit software associated with these rendering modes does not come within Blender and needs to be separately installed and configured as per their respective source instructions.

Multiple GPUs are also supported (with the notable exception of the EEVEE render engine<ref>{{cite web|title=Limitations — Blender Manual|url=https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/eevee/limitations.html#multiple-gpu-support|website=www.blender.org|access-date=2023-01-12}}</ref>) which can be used to create a [[render farm]] to speed up rendering by processing frames or tiles in parallel—having multiple GPUs, however, does not increase the available memory since each GPU can only access its own memory.<ref>{{cite web|title=GPU Rendering — Blender Reference Manual|url=http://www.blender.org/manual/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html|website=www.blender.org|access-date=2015-10-18}}</ref> Since Version 2.90, this limitation of [[Scalable Link Interface|SLI]] cards is broken with Nvidia's [[NVLink]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.blender3darchitect.com/blender-cycles/blender-2-90-cycles-updates-in-multi-gpu-nvlink/|title=Blender 2.90: Cycles updates in Multi GPU (NVLink) • Blender 3D Architect|date=10 August 2020}}</ref>

Apple's Metal API got initial implementation in Blender 3.1 for Apple computers with [[Apple M1|M1]] chips and [[AMD graphics processing units|AMD graphics cards]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/3.1/Cycles|title=Reference/Release Notes/3.1/Cycles - Blender Developer Wiki}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+Supported features<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html|title=GPU Rendering — Blender Manual}}</ref>
! Feature
! CPU
! CUDA
! OPTIX<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/69800|title=Cycles Optix feature completeness|website=Blender Projects}}</ref>
! HIP
! oneAPI
! Metal
|-
| Hardware Minimum for 3.0
| x86-64 and other 64-Bit<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=blender|title=Debian -- Package Search Results -- blender|website=packages.debian.org}}</ref>
| Cuda 3.0+: Nvidia cards Kepler to Ampere (CUDA Toolkit 11.1+)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Building_Blender/CUDA|title=Building Blender/CUDA - Blender Developer Wiki}}</ref>
| OptiX 7.3 with driver 470+: Full: Nvidia RTX Series; Parts: Maxwell+
| AMD RDNA architecture or newer, Radeon Software Drivers (Windows, Linux)
| Intel Graphics Driver 30.0.101.3430 or newer on Windows, OpenCL runtime 22.10.23904 on Linux
| Apple Computers with Apple Silicon in MacOS 12.2, AMD Graphics Cards with MacOS 12.3
|-
| Basic shading
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Shadows
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| [[Motion blur]]
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Hair
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Volume
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| [[Subsurface scattering]]
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| [[Open Shading Language]] (1.11) (OSL 1.12.6 in 3.4)
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{partial}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/osl.html|title=Open Shading Language - Blender 4.1 Manual}}</ref>
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|-
| Correlated multi-jittered sampling
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Bevel and AO shaders
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Baking<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/baking.html|title=Render Baking — Blender Manual}}</ref>
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}} 
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Can use CPU memory
| {{Clear}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
|-
| Distribute memory across devices
| {{yes}} with render farm<ref>{{cite web|url=https://rentaflop.com|title=rentaflop}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sheepit-renderfarm.com/index.php|title=SheepIt Render Farm}}</ref>
| {{yes}} with NVLink
| {{yes}} with NVLink
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|-
! colspan="67" |Experimental features
|-
| Adaptive [[Subdivision surface|subdivision]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/object_settings/adaptive_subdiv.html|title=Adaptive Subdivision — Blender Manual}}</ref>
| {{table-experimental}}
| {{table-experimental}}
| {{table-experimental}}
| {{table-experimental}}
| {{table-experimental}}
| {{table-experimental}}
|}