Is a graphics card required to use Blender and Unreal Engine?

▶

I want to tell you a little about whether you can use software like Blender or Unreal—especially Unreal, which is the heaviest—without a graphics card. The short answer is no… or no and yes… or yes and no. It depends on how you want to look at it. In a nutshell, to put it briefly:

Blender without a GPU

If you're going to be doing something very simple, let's talk about Blender first. For example, if you're going to be working with low-polygon scenes, you can probably use it without a GPU. Obviously, it all depends on the capabilities of your computer, but we're talking about doing, so to speak, more or less interesting work.

For example, when it comes to modeling in Blender, if you don't have a GPU, you most likely won't be able to use it smoothly. Here's an example with screenshots of how it works for me. In this case, I have a 14th-generation Intel processor, an i7-14700, and Blender, for example, is impossible for me to open this project—which is a figure I'm making for a game—because it freezes, just as you can see.

Minimal possibilities in Blender

In the case of Blender, as I said, if you're going to make some figures, some low-polygon models, you can probably do something. But when you add more detail—more polygons, applying a Subdivision Surface, or anything that increases the polygonal load—you're probably going to have problems.

Unreal without a GPU

As for Unreal, with the above, you can already imagine the situation. Unreal obviously consumes more resources because it's—to put it mildly—bigger, heavier, has more things to process, and more features than Blender, and therefore, performance without a GPU is terrible.

Here you can also see the game I'm making: it looks terrible. Working like this is very complicated. So, the short answer is no: if you don't have a GPU, it's very difficult for you to use Unreal.

Conclusion

Obviously, it all depends on the computer you're using. I'm talking mostly about a Windows environment. For example, on a Mac, with the M1 chips—or rather, the M series—it works quite well, I don't have any problems. But on this type of processor, at least those without strong support for graphics processing, you'll have a terrible time.

So, the short answer is: yes, you're going to need a GPU if you want to, so to speak, work seriously—not just create small examples—with Blender, and especially with Unreal.