I’m trying to figure out how to allow for GPU render. I’ve read many posts stating: User Preferences, System, Enable CUDA, and select GPU. I have done as such but I ran a test render and it didn’t use my GPU for anything. Earlier I was modeling a scene and most have messed up the hair particle system quantity, because the render maxed out my CPU and RAM. When the image finally finished rendering there was a whole mess more grass than I intended. Ao that’s what got me started trying to figure out why Blender isn’t drawing from my GPU. Here’s my system info: http://imgur.com/a/I63ZC in both cases (before and after adjusting user preferences) my CPU and RAM where bearing 99-100% load. How do I get my render to use my GPU? I have it set as GPU compute and the preferences set.
GPU is only used for one part (the main part) of rendering. which is the pathtracing itself.
CPU and RAM are used for preprocessing (creation of the BVH (how the mesh is stored for path tracing), image processing, material compiliation) and post processing ( composite & video sequence editor etc.etc.etc.)
1.) You need to use the “Cycles Render” engine. The “Blender Render” engine is not GPU-accelerated.
2.) You need to use “Device: GPU” in the render settings.
When the image finally finished rendering there was a whole mess more grass than I intended
In many settings, there is a “View” and a “Render” setting, one for the viewport and the other for final render.