Blender 2.8 minimum hardware requirements

Hi,

I have been using blender for many years, and now I am worried about if I will be able to use the upcoming version 2.8 under development on my old Sony Vaio laptop (Windows 10 home 64bit, intel i7 CPU Q740 1.73GHz, 6GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT330M), or should I buy another PC.

I tried running all the Windows Blender 2.8 builds available (win32, win64 and win64-vc14) but they crash immediatelly in the same way. The black-background window always displays the same following message:

Win32 Error# (3221692565): <no system message>
Win32 Error# (3221684237): <no system message>
Win32 Error# (3221684237): <no system message>
Win32 Error# (3221684237): <no system message>
Win32 Error# (3221684237): <no system message>

and shuts down.

Can you please tell me what’s the meaning of the above error and what’s the minimum hardware required to run Blender 2.8?

Thanks

Hi,
the biggest change in hardware requirements that I know of is that your video card must support at least OpenGL 3.3. A quick Google search shows that yours has v2.1. You can try installing the latest drivers if it supports anything newer, but this is not probable.

Unfortunately, this requirement will lock out many computers and therefore probably a number of users from all newer Blender versions starting with 2.8.

Thank you Zsolt,

Judging from what I saw about the fantastic capabilities of Eevee, I was suspecting that my video card on my old laptop was not enough powerful for that. Now, I clearly understood it, thank you. Few months ago, I also tried to update my current drivers but it doesn’t seem to be possible to update to OpenGL 3.3. Therefore, there is nothing else that I can do but buying a new PC.

Thank you for your advise.

Sounds like an instance of this bug: https://developer.blender.org/T51644

This card does seem to support OpenGL 3.3, according to http://opengl.gpuinfo.org/. You can also check system info in Blender 2.78 to verify the OpenGL version. A faster card would certainly help but Blender 2.8 should be able to run on this system.

Thank you brecht,

I read the link https://developer.blender.org/T51644 that you suggested. A little bit technical for me, but as soon as I tried with the command line “blender.exe -d --debug-gpu”, it worked!!! (I used win64 build)

Now the Blender main window opens up and it is possible to do all basic operations. Of course, as I expected, Eevee is a little bit slow because of my old hardware.

Unexpectedly however, Blender sistematically crashes whenever I use Blender Render and I try to enter Edit mode.

As for my current video card NVIDIA Geforce GT330M, I will investigate more on how to update it.
Anyway, thanks for your information. Maybe I have a chance to use my old PC a little bit longer than I thought.

The edit mode problems in blender internal is one of the many bugs in Blender 2.8. You know its an unstable version.
Just wait a little longer for developers to start cleaning up things.

and there is always the ability to run an external GPU

Moved from “General Forums > Blender and CG Discussions” to “Support > Technical Support”

Yes, you’re all right kaltyiontrish. I cannot pretend that Blender 2.8 could be stable at this phase. For me, it’s a miracle just being able to run it. If I only think that upto few hours ago I was on the point to buy a new PC…

I have never considered the possibility to add an external GPU until now. It’s another useful hint. Thank you cekuhnen.