[arch-general] Does Blender really (optionally) depends on CUDA?

[Ali Emre Gülcü]

Hello dear Arch community,

Blender <https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/blender/> package
in official repositories lists CUDA
<https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/cuda/> as BOTH optional
and make dependency, the optional one described as "cycles renderer cuda
support". However, Cycles CUDA support is already present even without
explicitly installing CUDA package, as long as you have the proprietary
NVIDIA <https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/nvidia/> drivers
installed (don't know the situation with nouveau). As far as I know, CUDA
package is only needed while building Blender yourself from the source,
hence the make dependency. So my question is, does Blender really depend on
CUDA for any additional feature? Or is it simply a legacy dependency or a
mistake on packagers' end? Does it serve a purpose that I'm missing?

Thanks,

Ali Emre Gülcü