Blender now offers native Windows ARM64 builds through Buildbot service

Blender, the popular open-source 3D-making platform, seems to be following in Microsoft’s footsteps in supporting the Arm architecture. After years, the platform now finally offers native Windows ARM64 builds through its Buildbot service, as announced recently in Blender’s community forum.

Downloadable via Blender’s Daily Builds on Buildbot (Blender version 4.2.0), folks over at Blender’s Amsterdam HQ said that it’d evaluate the number of platform-specific reports and may provide hardware to assist the triaging team as needed. 

“We are working with Anthony (Roberts) and other involved parties on the further steps of making Windows ARM64 builds for official releases,” the announcement reads. Just a few weeks back, Blender also launched v. 4.1, a version that’s generally available for everyone instead.

Many months ago, it was also announced that support for Windows ARM devices to Blender, including dep building, was coming to the platform. At that time, Roberts said that it’s working exclusively on devices with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 or above, like the Lenovo Thinkpad X13s or Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (ARM version). 

“Older generation devices are not, and will not be supported, due to some driver issues,” the previous announcement says. 

Buildbot is an open-source framework where developers automatically build, test, and release software, saving time by handling these tasks whenever changes are made to the code.