Does BLender 2.73 or 2.74 support GPU rendering on my ATI Radeon HD5500? The option for GPU is not available in the preferences “System” panel, and when I check “Experimental” under the render tab, I get an error/warning triangle, and the option still does not appear in the preferences “System” panel. It makes me feel that my GPU is not supported, so my additional question is, would it really make any difference in rendering time?
For Cycles rendering you need CUDA which is proprietary to Nvidia. In all likelihood rendering with a Nvidia GPU will be faster (I don’t imagine your HD5500 series GPU is installed in a PC with latest high end CPU) but how much better will depend largely on what you are willing to spend. If you’ve been using Blender for a while and are happy, an investment in new hardware may not be necessary.
Note that GPU renders will be limited by VRAM and there are some missing elements still (eg no smoke).
Your GPU will continue to function for display purposes.
Cheers
For GPU rendering, only NVIDIA GPUs and APUs are supported at the moment.
In the future AMD might improve Open CL…
In the future AMD might improve Open CL…
They do, two AMD developer are working on improving Cycles OpenCL at moment!
@bill2reg, the new OpenCL code will support only HD 7000 and up, I fear, and you need 2 GB VRAM minimum.
Cheers, mib
So they started working on it again. So I can now untilize my AMD video card!
Yep, you could try a Windows build from DingTo or you have to compile Blender yourself (cycles_kernel_split branch).
CHeers, mib
bill2reg
I have exactly the same card “xfx 5500 amd” saved like the asus 7870. Unfortunately the architecture that has the “VLIW”. Completely different, if it is complicated OpenCL amd, with current gcn architecture.
For that I recommend using LuxRender gpu or maybe a hardware change. OpenCL cost using the change I 7870 “to the new NVIDIA 970”. It just cost me the patience to wait almost three years. I also blight the vram “7870” just something inside amd already known to have problems with the use and management of the same. I hope for the sake of the new amd hbm of “r9 3x0” series is good but not recommend buying anything until it is more stabl