Compatibility and known issues

Blender

• Blender 4.2 LTS through 5.3. Checked on 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 and the 5.3 daily build.
• It will not run below 4.2 (it is built as a Blender extension).
• New Blender releases: we aim to support each one in the next update, usually within a few weeks. Until then a new daily build may show a message or a missing picture; tell us and we fix it.

Platforms

• Windows: tested, every feature. The primary platform.
• macOS: tested on Apple Silicon (M-series), Blender 4.2 to 5.3, every feature including the Pop-Out.
• Linux: not tested. It should work (nothing in it is Windows-only except the hidden desktop the Windows render worker uses, and the add-on falls back without it), but we have not run it ourselves. If you try it, tell us how it went at support@blacklykhen.com.

Graphics cards

• NVIDIA is the fast path (OptiX, then CUDA).
• AMD (HIP), Apple Silicon (Metal) and Intel Arc (oneAPI) are supported. Apple Silicon is tested; AMD and Intel are supported but not tested on our own machines.
• No usable GPU: Cycles previews fall back to the CPU, slower but working.
• EEVEE previews work on any GPU Blender itself runs on.

Speed

• Preview speed depends on your computer: the graphics card first, then the scene and the material. The trailer and the clips were recorded on a desktop with a dedicated GPU.
• On a laptop or an older card previews take longer, and Cycles previews on the CPU take a lot longer. EEVEE previews are the quick ones on any machine.
• The first preview of a heavy material waits for its shader to compile; after that only the nodes you touch re-render. Lower the sample count or the thumbnail size in the Performance settings on a slow machine.

Memory

• Loupe Shader runs one or two extra Blender processes in the background (the render worker and, by default, an interaction worker for drags). Each holds its own RAM and GPU memory: about 2.7 GB of GPU memory per worker for Cycles on an RTX 4090, less with EEVEE.
• On a tight machine turn Interaction Worker off in the Performance settings to run just one.
• If other programs fill the graphics memory, Cycles previews slow down a lot (the renderer spills into system memory). Close them, or lower the sample count.

Known issues and limits

• Thumbnails and the Pop-Out are previews: low resolution, few samples, simplified lighting, often a different shape than your scene. Check the look in a real render before you deliver.
• A heavy material takes a few seconds the first time its shader compiles (EEVEE); the Pop-Out says compiling… and keeps the previous picture meanwhile. After that only the nodes you touch re-render.
• EEVEE with Studio lighting draws polished metals a little darker than Cycles does: EEVEE reduces the studio HDRI to a single sun. This is how EEVEE works; switch to Cycles to compare.
• Blender 4.3 only: the quick frames shown while a thumbnail turns are rendered instead of drawn from a viewport, so drags are a little less smooth there.
• Thumbnail resolution tops out at 256 px; the rendered Pop-Out at 512 px.
• The Pop-Out is a split area of the Blender window; there is no floating window.
• A pinned thumbnail (the before picture) lasts for the session and is not saved in the file.
• Some outputs have no picture by nature: Group Input and Group Output inside a group, and in Blender 5 the closures, bundles, menus and the nodes inside a Repeat zone. The hover tooltip says so.
• Engine-only nodes render as their engine does: Shader to RGB and the Specular BSDF are black in Cycles, an IES texture is black in EEVEE. Script (OSL) nodes render on the CPU. Material Lighting nodes (Blender 5.3) respond to lamps only and are black in Cycles until Cycles supports them.
• If Blender’s Auto-Save Preferences is off, press Save Preferences once after installing, or the add-on is forgotten at the next start. The panel reminds you.

Updating and uninstalling

• Update: Edit › Preferences › Get Extensions › the ▾ menu › Install from Disk, pick the new .zip. It replaces the old version in place; keep a single copy installed. The store you bought from emails you when an update is out and keeps the latest files on your order page.
• Uninstall: remove it in Get Extensions, then delete the loupe_shader_cache folder in your system temp folder if you want the thumbnail cache gone too.
• Loupe Shader never edits your node connections and writes only small sp_* view settings into your .blend; everything else lives in temporary files outside it.