Using Older Amd Drivers To Temporarily Fix Blender Rendering Issues

Troubleshooting Blender Rendering Issues with Older AMD Drivers

Recent versions of Blender and AMD drivers have introduced software and hardware incompatibilities that manifest as rendering bugs and artifacts for some users. Downgrading to older, proven-compatible AMD drivers can temporarily restore normal rendering functionality while developers work on permanent fixes.

What’s Causing the Problems?

Beginning with Blender version 2.83, changes to the Cycles rendering engine and AMD’s RDNA and RDNA2 GPU architectures have surfaced rendering incompatibilities resulting in crashes, hangs, textures failures, and other issues. Specific culprits include:

Inefficient kernel compiler optimizations in Blender 2.83+ Cycles builds
Problematic geometry shader compilations on AMD Navi/RDNA cards
Buggy OpenCL GPU drivers in Adrenalin 2020 Edition AMD releases

These software and hardware defects cause rendering jobs to fail or manifest visual artifacts like missing textures, textures mapped to the wrong meshes, fully black renders, and more. AMD and Blender developers are actively working on fixes, but downgrading drivers offers a temporary workaround.

Table of Contents

Downgrading Your AMD Drivers

To downgrade, first identify and download an older, compatible AMD driver. Recommended versions that fix rendering issues include Adrenalin 19.12.1 or Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.1.

After obtaining the older install package, fully uninstall your existing AMD drivers using the Factory Reset option. This will wipe the drivers clean so the older version can install cleanly without conflicts.

Finally, install the older AMD driver package through Radeon Software. Make sure to reboot to complete the downgrade process.

Configuring Blender with Older AMD Drivers

After reverting to a proven-good older AMD driver release, Blender itself needs reconfiguration to fully restore compatibility.

Setting Blender to use Compatibility/Legacy Rendering Modes

In Blender’s Cycles rendering settings, change the Rendering Mode setting from OptiX to either CUDA (Nvidia GPUs) or OpenCL (AMD GPUs). This engages legacy rendering pipelines known to work properly with older drivers.

Additionally, disable Experimental Features to avoid any newer buggy functionality. Disable Viewport Denoising for the same reason.

Enabling Debugging Parameters and Log Options

To help trace any lingering issues, enable Cycles debugging parameters:

Filter Glossy = 1 – Helps highlight broken texture mappings
Print Debug PTX code = Active – Logs PTX code and compilation errors
Log Verbose = True – Expands rendering log output

With logging expanded, rendering errors from incompatible code compilation, buggy shaders, driver crashes, and similar issues become logged for diagnosis.

Example Config Code Snippets

The following custom config.py parameters serve as a starting point:

import bpy
bpy.context.scene.cycles.shading_system = False

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.use_simplify = True
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].cycles.debug_use_spatial_splits = True

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].cycles.debug_use_hair_bvh = False
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].cycles.debug_use_simplify = False
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].cycles.debug_bvh_layout = "DYNAMIC_BVH"
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].cycles.debug_bvh_time_steps = 1

Testing and Verifying Fixes

After completing driver downgrades and blender reconfiguration, test renders of various scenes can check for improvements.

Rendering Example Scenes to Check for Improvements

Good test scenes include both basic geometry like cubes and Suzannes along with more complex meshes. Watch for improvements across:

Full renders completing without crashes or hangs
Textures appearing correctly without shifted mappings
Lighting baking properly without all black output
No artifacts like flickering pixels or edges in final renders
Clean texture previews in rendered viewport

Monitoring Logs and Metrics During Test Renders

In addition to visually inspecting test renders for defects, monitor logging and performance metrics:

Check for compilation failures, panics, protection faults in logs
Watch GPU usage graphs for instability symptoms
Verify kernel execution times remain steady scene to scene
Confirm no out of memory errors

Logs and metrics staying clean indicate underlying stability from the driver downgrade.

Reporting Remaining Issues/Artifacts

If any rendering failures remain post-downgrade, detail them along with system information to Blender and AMD to aid troubleshooting:

Blender version, render engine, and precise error messages
AMD driver version exhibiting problems
Full system specifications
Scene files that still show problems after downgrading

Isolating remaining issues helps developers patch the underlying bugs.

Workarounds and Next Steps

If the AMD driver downgrade and Blender reconfiguration fails entirely to resolve rendering problems, or issues gradually recur, additional troubleshooting may help identify permanent solutions.

When to Revert Back to Newer Drivers

Once AMD and Blender developers release official hotfixes for recent rendering bugs, upgrading back to current drivers is recommended for best performance and compatibility.

Closely track release notes for hotfixes specifically targeting rendering errors – once available, revert to the now-patched latest driver.

Providing Feedback to Blender and AMD Developers

Report any difficulties downgrading and whether doing so resolved all rendering system instability or visual defects. Detailed bug reports help AMD and Blender improve compatibility in future releases.

Likewise highlight if reverting to a just-patched new driver version advertisement restores full functionality without downsides.