Legacy AMD Option
Add a new option named Legacy AMD (abbreviated Leg. AMD) that uses OpenCL (Or a better more reliable platform that still supports GCN 3 and above) so People with AMD GPUs that have the architecture before RDNA 1 or bave a a early Vega GPU can still use GPU compute in Cycles:
I made this because I use a ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DY Laptop with an RX 560X and a Vega 8 (which the Vega 8 obviously wont work) and I had to download Blender 2.93 LTS just to use Cycles with my laptop.
It must support:
- GCN 3 (Fiji)
- GCN 4 (Polaris) - My GPU
- GCN 5 (Vega) - I'm not sure if its already supported
- GCN 5.1 (Vega) - I think its already supported
4 Comments
GCN 2 was released in 2013, that's 13 years ago. It's not just Blender that would need to support it, but also drivers and the operating system.
Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just adding a button. Everything under the hood must support it, and that has a huge time/resources cost in maintenance. Resources that are better spent in making Blender better for everyone.
Luckily, older Blender versions will always be available for download so you can use them for as long as you need, until you can upgrade your system. Blender 2.93 LTS is an amazing version with 18 corrective releases and hundreds of bug fixes, the last release was only 3 years ago. Professional projects even feature films were done with it and earlier versions.
Aren't you the same guy who downvoted another guy who just wanted Polaris support for Cycles rendering amd you just sayed how the Blender team is occupied with other things, that it would require unreleased drivers and to just install Blender 2.93 LTS which you also said to me to say with Blender 2.93 LTS which is a relatively in features a ANCIENT version of Blender? I just want modern Cycles on my RX 560X so I can get amazing renders that donr take like 18 bazillion hours to make also even if you say for me to just use EEVEE i agree but its absolutely BAD for making glass effects for that you need to use Cycles so it actually looks good, and also they did it on all versions prior to 3.0 so why not just make if for versions after 3.0 then, the only point I agreed with you was just GCN 2 being outdated which well i do agree so i just removed it from the required list but still people with amazing good working GPUs like the RX 580 which yes that one is Polaris cannot do Cycles renders on modern versions of Blender that is outrageous everyone with a minimally good GPU SHOULD be able to make a render on modern Blender because nobody should be limited by the only software that they have access to and also Blender 2.93 LTShas so many features missing and different that some guy that masters Blender 5.1 would have a heart attack trying to use Blender 2.93 LTS, thats why i feel this should be implemented.
AMD's OpenCL drivers just cannot handle compiling rewriten Cycles, its not even in realm of possibility. Even AMD developers were failing at that, that’s why it was abandoned.
Previous OpenCL implementation was hold with glue and hopes and always was barely working. One generation newer GCN architecture does not changes anything about fact that OpenCL is just failed project.
Its not developers fault that hardware does not support any sensible programming API, so there is no reason to be angry about that.
You can either try to trade You current system for something that Blender supports , or You can try other render engine like LuxCore .
Hello, I do understand OpenCL is very messy for making a Path Tracing rendering engine, but Vulkan compute could be used OpenGL compute shaders could also be used but i dont know if Cycles could be ported to those it is just that Polaris is good enough to run Cycles wuthout issues but APIs are limited but any of those three (OpenCL, OpenGL compute shaders or Vulkan Compute) could be used to port Cycles to GCN 3+ I here just hope the Blender team can get Cycles working on Polaris GPUs and maybe make it more acessible for people wuth GCN 3 and Vega cards too