Software render is when all processing is done by the CPU.

In software render, you need a very fast CPU to have a good rendering.

Hardware render is when 3D procession is done by 3D chips on the graphic card.

In Hardware render, a lot of work is done by the graphic card, then the cpu can do a lot of other things.


In most of cases, in software rendering, there are a lot of Fx missing because they are very expensive in CPU time.

is it clear now ?