OpenCL enabled GPU and drivers
You will need a relatively new graphics card for this, and up to date drivers. In Windows you can use GPU-Z to verify that you're OpenCL-enabled ("OpenCL" checkbox is checked).
Enabled hybrid renderer
The GPU acceleration requires that you use the "hybrid" renderer.
Blender 2.49:
Under Renderer -> Engine, set to "hybrid". Currently only "path" integrator is supported, and you'll need to enable the "advanced" mode to switch "strategy" to "one". Otherwise you'll get errors.
Blender 2.5x:
In the Render tab, LuxRender Engine Configuration panel, set the Renderer dropdown to "Hybrid". Currently only "Path" integrator is supported, set it in the "Surface Integrator" panel.
Please note you'll need pylux installed and working for the new 0.8 options to be exposed. See here for more details.
Manually (lxs):
Insert the following line before "WorldBegin" in the lxs file:
- Code: Select all
Renderer "hybrid"
Currently only "path" integrator is supported, and the "lightstrategy" has to be "one". Thus ensure that your Integrator statement looks like this (excluding the other path parameters such as "maxdepth"):
- Code: Select all
SurfaceIntegrator "path"
"string lightstrategy" ["one"]
Hybrid supports the "random" and "metropolis" samplers.
Verify that it's working
Unfortunately the only way to verify that it's working is either:
- Observe a different speed compared to using the "classic" (or "Sampler" in 2.5x) renderer.
- Use a tool (like GPU-Z) to monitor GPU activity.
- Launch LuxRender with --verbose command line option.
Limitations
- Currently one cannot configure the hybrid renderer, and as such it will only use the first GPU it finds.
- Speed may not be faster, depends on hardware.
- Currently no support for instances.
- This is still under heavy development, don't expect miracles
