The devs really need to focus more on opencl.

I have three opencl compatible devices in my pc, compared to one cuda compatible, and it would be really nice to have my pc being used to it’s full capacity. My main nvidia card would do most of the heavy lifting, but my cpu is the only one that doesn’t fail to start the render with opencl.

I feel opencl would be very useful to people who have nvidia cards also, not just amd, since they could use their cpu, gpu, and igpu all at the same time. Even with the slightly less performance on nvidia gpus compared to cuda, the cpu and igpu helping out would definitely add up to higher performance.

The developers really need to focus on OpenCL. The driver developers at hardware companies, that is.

This is not just a Cycles issue. Proprietary software like Octane also has this issue. I refer to Octane’s website’s FAQ. Please take a look at #5 for the answer.

http://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/faqs/

An excellent article on the strengths and weaknesses of both CUDA and OpenCL:

For 3D artists, I’m really sorry to say this, but there really is no question about hardware. It’s Nvidia/Intel all the way and has been that way since Octane and Cycles started, simply because the architecture of CUDA is more conducive for GPU rendering than OpenCL, which simply does not have the functionality in that area that CUDA currently has. If you take a look at that article, OpenCL has some strong points, so, depending on which software you use, you may choose that hardware option, but, when it comes to 3D graphics, especially GPU rendering, CUDA is the only viable option at this point.

On the bright side, with recent improvements to Cycles, CPU rendering has started to creep toward GPU render speeds, depending on the speed of your CPU, and there are some arguments against GPU rendering, most notably, the fact that memory issues abound, and you need to invest insane amounts of money into a GPU just to be able to use it effectively.

That being said, I’m an Nvidia/Intel guy all the way, and have been since I had serious issues with ATI/AMD two machines ago. Unless those two really start getting going again, I’m afraid I’ll never go back to them, simply because they don’t offer the same abilities in this area than Nvidia/Intel.

Dan

I am kind of surprised to see this thread. :stuck_out_tongue:
You guys know that we did a lot of work in the past months to make OpenCL work, right? http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.75/Cycles

Just get a daily build for the upcoming Blender 2.75 release and see for yourself.

yeah, its like asking for a mechanic to focus on learning to fix cars,

he did, he does and he do.