If you need Blender, stick with proprietary nVidia [LWN.net]

If you need Blender, stick with proprietary nVidia

Posted Jul 7, 2010 9:02 UTC (Wed) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550)
In reply to: What graphics card should one buy? by rbrito
Parent article: A line in the sand for graphics drivers

If you're thinking of using Blender3D, the proprietary nVidia driver is the only reliable game in town at the moment.

On the X.org wiki RadeonProgram support matrix, Blender3D support is recorded as GOLD for the older Radeon R300 series. Looking at the small print, this means "(Blender) 2.49 requires low impact fallbacks to draw all interface symbols (stipple lines for lamp types, etc), but that affects speed. 2.50 requiries changing triple buffer mode to something else, or unusable (app problem, it seems to happen with other brands and operating systems too)."

The more recent R500 R600 series chipset support is rated as GARBAGE/UNKNOWN. The current R700 is SILVER, which, being translated, means "(26 Oct 2009) [mesa-git] Crashes on many operations and does not update its interface correctly."

For Blender, Radeon is not quite there yet, in other words. Stick with programs marked PLATINUM in the support matrix if you actually need to get stuff done.

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If you need Blender, stick with proprietary nVidia

Posted Jul 7, 2010 22:12 UTC (Wed) by svena (guest, #20177) [Link]

Don't rely too much on the RadeonProgram wiki page, much of the information is quite outdated . Possibly because updating it is such a hassle.

If you need Blender, stick with proprietary nVidia

Posted Jul 8, 2010 19:23 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

"For Blender, Radeon is not quite there yet, in other words. Stick with programs marked PLATINUM in the support matrix if you actually need to get stuff done."

Nonsense. I've been using blender on my r200 with the open radeon driver for years without problems.