I am not saying it wont be THE solution, but maybe just not yet. OpenCL still has some time before it really gets applicable across the board. Give it a shot and try it out, you will be happy and surprised. Its affordable, easy to use, awesome quality, and free to try, though you can't save. I know its not open source and free, but that doesn't make it bad. Whether it is OpenCL, Stream, or Cuda, only time will tell. This is why so many companies are focusing on porting their software to a gpu architecture. The gpu is much better at rendering then the cpu is. The big thing here is showing that the cpu for rendering is not the best way to go. You "can" use your cpu in cuda emulation mode, though you dont get the performance benefits that a gpu can give. fbx and collada formats are in the works, as well as rib. It is glitchy here and there, but nothing that can't be overcome. I have found exporting, using the obj format is ok. I know they're focusing on getting more features implemented with the existing software before they look at that.
If I understand correctly, Octane might eventually go towards both Ati and Nvidia. Please note that the software is currently only compatible with Nvidia Geforce 8000 or higher GPUs, however support for ATI GPUs is in development as well. Since the developers are Blender fans and use Blender themselves, use of Blender is fully supported through Wavefront OBJ format, and a special extended OBJ export script with additional features like bump map and opacity map export is available for Blender users.
The website has also been replaced with a new one, with a new gallery full of images rendered with Octane Render to enjoy.
This release also brings a native version for Mac OS X, and works on Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6), along with 32bit and 圆4 versions for MS Windows, and a 64bit native linux version. Some of the new features are the physical daylight system with sun and sky, bump maps, normal maps, opacity/alpha maps, spectral thin film coatings, smooth group support, support for the new Cuda 3.0 system, an improved user interface, many other tweaks and many bugfixes. What you ultimately get from this list is an Nvidia Graphics Cards comparison. Metal support requires macOS 10.14.6 or newer. AMD Radeon Pro Render: The GPU renderer requires an NVIDIA or AMD graphics card on Windows or AMD on macOS that supports OpenCL 1.2 or newer.
We are proud to announce the availability of the much anticipated v1.0 beta2 version of Octane Render. To find the best performing Nvidia Graphics Cards in Rendering I took the average of the three most popular GPU Render Engines: Redshift, Octane, and Vray-RT, and assigned points depending on the performance. OpenGL graphics card supporting OpenGL 4.1 or newer (dedicated GPU recommended).
It uses the processor in your Nvidia GeForce 8000 (or higher) graphicscard. Octane Render is a GPU based, un-biased, physically based renderer that supports Blender.