Natron not using GPU when rendering.

Software Natron
1

I have OpenGL rendering enabled but whenever I render it only uses my CPU.

Also, it lists my renderer as my integrated graphics card when I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. How do I switch my renderer to the better card?

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2

Hi,

What platform are you using? (Windows/macOS/Linux).

3

Hello! I am on windows

4

I think you will need to go to the settings for NVIDIA and make the dedicated GPU the default (for OpenGL) if possible.

See https://forum.qt.io/post/503402

5

Thanks! I have it set to the Graphics card I want now, but it’s still only using my CPU when rendering. Is this normal? I don’t get why I would click enable OpenGL rendering but then it still uses my CPU.

Here is a pic of my settings
Annotation 2020-04-02 173849

6

Try reinstalling Natron and the graphics driver. Reinstalling the driver usually fixes most openGL issues.

7

Is it normal for the CPU to do most of the heavy lifting in this program? I’m new to compositing. In Blender the GPU does most of the work so I don’t know if maybe the GPU just only accomplishes a little bit.

8

I don’t think the compositor in Blender uses the GPU.
GPU processing is not well suited for compositing, due to the non-linear nature of compositing graphs, which are more complex than just adding effect layers.

Natron will use the GPU if the nodes in your graph support it, for example if you make a graph that only uses Shadertoy nodes.

9

Ah that’s what I was starting to figure. Thanks for the clarification.

10

You can also easily make GPU versions of classical nodes, like Merge, but they will have less functionalities than the generic versions. Actually I even think it may be a good idea make a “MergeOverGPU” Node based on Shadertoy

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The compositor only uses the CPU. And I think its single-core only. You can tell by its speed. Blender compositor is slow as hell.

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It already exists:

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Oh yes I forgot about it. It has an issue with the way it samples the textures, but I’ll fix that?
It is probably more efficient to have a shader for each merge mode rather than a specific merge. The next release will have a few merge modes as shadertoy presets, eg openfx-misc/mergeover.frag.glsl at master · NatronGitHub/openfx-misc · GitHub

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14

The Merge_GL community plugin is fixed!

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15

Nice!