Marketplaces: To buy old graphics cards the best place to start is eBay (localised as, ebay.ca, ebay.es etc.) and/or other online marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, where used computer hardware is sold – when buying it’s best to use ‘trusted’ (re)sellers where possible as purchases made through them are usually protected to some degree (where service is offered).įorums/Social Media: Still online, look through forums, social media groups or other places where members might post about old hardware they want shot of, in many cases this can be picked up free (collect in person) or for cost of postage. Obviously upgrading notebooks (generally not upgradable), mobile workstations ( upgradeable through MXM Type A or B modules/boards) and all forms of desktop PCs will differ depending on system capability, upgradeability and hardware availability, and may also require other component upgrades for proper functionality, larger power supplies for example.

ATI Radeon HD/Mobility Radeon 2000, 3000, 4000 series graphics cards/on-board chips.

The following graphics cards and chips specifically support OpenGL 3.0/3.1/3.2/3.3 and should be considered the absolute minimum (note: actually support may be subject to driver availability, OpenGL 3.3 and system hardware support) Understandably what may be easily affordable and acquirable hardware for one person may not be for another.

In this second part of the discussion on running Blender on older computers we take a look at upgrading incompatible computers and hardware cheaply and where it can generally be acquired.

In first part of “ Will Blender run on older computers” the minimum requirements necessary to run Blender were discussed, namely the need for graphics hardware supporting and/or compatibility with OpenGL 3.3 or higher (largely as related to Windows OS computers), itself published c.2010.ĭesign note: It should be noted that Blender does cater to ‘legacy hardware’ to a degree in providing support for components and systems that are almost a decade old (based on OpenGL version supported), a very long time in technological terms.

Blender 2.8 intel graphics card 4600