Blender 3.3 LTS alpha release adds Intel Arc and AMD Vega support, reduces RAM u...

Blender 3.3 LTS alpha release adds Intel Arc and AMD Vega support, reduces RAM usage

The Blender 3.3 LTS (alpha) release notes are out, and they include some massive changes. First up, Cycles is gaining support for Intel Arc GPUs, though so far, it is only on Windows with Linux support coming later. Blender will finally support AMD's Vega GPUs including the integrated graphics on its Ryzen 2000G, 4000G, and 5000G series APUs on desktop and mobile.

The Core has also received updates such that it reduces RAM consumption on image thumbnails. The change logs are given below:

Render & Cycles

• Intel GPU Rendering

  • Support for rendering on the latest Intel GPUs has been added using oneAPI. (rBa02992f1)
  • Requires an Intel® Arc™ GPU. The implementation is primarily focused on this architecture and future Intel GPUs.
    - Only supported on Windows currently, with driver version 101.1660 or newer.
  • Kernels are compiled when rendering for the first time. Currently this can be slow, for example 15 minutes. We are working to bundle compiled kernels with Blender for the final release instead.

Linux support is being worked on for the final release. This will require driver version 22.10.22597 or newer.

• AMD GPU Rendering

  • AMD GPU Rendering for Vega generation graphics cards has been enabled, on Windows and Linux. Both discrete GPUs and APUs are supported. (abfa097abf)
  • This includes GPUs such as Radeon VII, Radeon RX Vega Series and Radeon Pro WX 9100.

Core

• Others

  • JPEG preview thumbnails created faster and with less RAM. (8960c6e060)

  • EXR preview thumbnails created for all types and with less RAM.

You can view the full release notes for Blended 3.3 LTS (alpha) here. You can download the Blender 3.3 LTS alpha build here.