Blender 4.5 LTS: EEVEE & Viewport¶
EEVEE¶
Shadow Terminator¶
A shadow terminator bias was introduced. This allows to remove the self shadowing artifacts on low-polygon geometry. (81c00bf272)
| Without Bias | With Bias |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Reverse-Z¶
A new algorithm has been implemented to reduce the depth buffer artifacts cause by long view distances. (ca88983af2)
Fixes¶
Fix shadow acnee issues using quantized geometric normal. This can slightly modify the shadow in some files. (410282e156)
Light leaking caused by large source light have been improved. This can make some surfaces darker than they were in previous version. (b01cdf7df2)
Performance¶
Texture loading performance has been improved. (1d638c0f5e)
Startup performance has been improved. (d955ebce30 and 1c17063155)
Shader compilation is now multi-threaded by default on platform that benefits from it. A new user preference setting was added to choose between multi-threaded and subprocess compilation. (1c47e31367)
Vulkan¶
Vulkan is here! The popular backend is now on par with OpenGL.
- Added support for OpenXR, Subdivision, USD/Hydra and more.
- Performance has been improved significantly compared to previous releases.
Linux with NVIDIA requires driver version 550 or higher. On some systems the fallback to OpenGL doesn't work #139217.
OpenGL is still the default in Blender 4.5 LTS, users are encouraged to try Vulkan by enabling it in Preferences.
Supported platforms¶
| Devices | Windows | Linux |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | ||
| GTX 700 - GTX 800 | NVIDIA 500+ | Mesa |
| GTX 900 - GTX 1000 | NVIDIA 500+ | NVIDIA 550+ |
| RTX 2000 - RTX 5000 | NVIDIA 500+ | NVIDIA 550+ |
| AMD | ||
| HD 7000 - HD 8000 | Unsupported | Mesa |
| R 200, R 300 | Unsupported | Mesa |
| RX 400 - RX 600 | AMD Official/latest | AMD Official/latest, Mesa |
| RX Vega | AMD Official/latest | AMD Official/latest, Mesa |
| RX 5000 - RX 9000 | AMD Official/latest | AMD Official/latest, Mesa |
| Intel | ||
| Intel 6-10th gen iGPU | Unsupported | Mesa |
| Intel 11th gen iGPU and above | Intel Official/latest | Mesa |
| Intel Arc | Intel Official/latest | Mesa |
| Qualcomm | ||
| Adreno X1-85 GPU | Qualcomm >31.0.112.0 |
- On Linux with AMD GPU Mesa version 25.3 is recommended.
- Qualcomm driver 31.0.112.0 isn't released at the time that Blender 4.5 is released.
Limitations¶
- Virtual reality using Vulkan has performance issues. For virtual reality we will recommend to use OpenGL.
- Vulkan backend cannot handle huge meshes (100.000.000 vertices). Vulkan has different limits compared to OpenGL. These limits are controlled by the driver and vendor specific. Changing drivers could increase these limits.
- All textures should fit inside the GPU memory. Vulkan has different limits compared to OpenGL. These limits are controlled by the driver and vendor specific. Changing drivers could increase these limits.
Navigation & Selection¶
Objects that are not marked selectable no longer affect selection and auto-depth. This improves working with semi transparent surfaces. (3dfec1ff73)
GPU based subdivision¶
GPU based subdivision is available using on Metal (32999913ef) and Vulkan (c7f7c03f4c).
Some performance figures: Suzanne 6 subdivision levels
| Machine | CPU Subdivision | GPU Subdivision |
|---|---|---|
| M1 Studio Ultra | 7fps | 12 fps |
| M2 Air | 3fps | 11 fps |
Profiling¶
There's a new --profile-gpu command line argument that exports GPU and CPU profiling data (Docs).