How to enable GPU Acceleration in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018?

How to enable GPU Acceleration in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018? GPU acceleration refers to the technology that uses GPU to accelerate algorithm computing. For improved performance, Premiere Pro can use available GPUs to distribute processing tasks between the CPU and the GPU.

Many Premiere Pro effects and plugins currently require GPU acceleration. The Mercury Playback Engine (GPU accelerated) renderer is used to render specific effects and improve playback.

How to enable GPU Acceleration in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018?

Assign the Renderer to Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (OpenCL/CUDA/Metal) in Adobe Premiere Pro by going to File > Project Settings > General > Video Rendering and Playback.

So… what does it do?

The Mercury Playback Engine (GPU Accelerated) renderer is not only limited to rendering accelerated effects and features. It is also used for image processing, color space conversions, resizes, recoloring, and other tasks. It is also used with Mercury Transmit for timeline playback/scrubbing and full-screen playback.

How to Fix the Error “This effect requires GPU acceleration”?

When it is not correctly configured, you may notice that the CPU is being used at 100% and the GPU is at 0% or 1%, even though you are confident that the Mercury Playback Engine is activated. And it’s still lagging, choppy, and occasionally crashes. Continue reading for a comprehensive guide to resolving the issues.

Adobe’s most recent update: Premiere Pro now supports NVIDIA and AMD GPUs on Windows, allowing hardware acceleration to speed up encoding on those systems. And, as many users expected, it now natively supports Apple’s ProRes RAW codec.

1. Turn on Mercury GPU Acceleration

“This effect requires GPU acceleration” appears in Premiere Pro because some effects are computationally intensive and require hardware acceleration to lessen CPU load. A special icon in the effects bin indicates GPU-accelerated effects.

If the effect you’re applying to the videos and tracks is designed to be GPU-accelerated, make sure Mercury GPU acceleration is enabled and your graphics card supports it.

Step 1: Relaunch Adobe Premiere Pro and upload your files.

Step 2: Review Renderer. Make sure it is Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration in Project Settings> General> Renderer.

Now you can check how GPU acceleration works in your system and open Premiere Pro to see if it runs faster.

If you have Media Encoder installed in addition to Premiere Pro, make sure you enable GPU for it. In Media Encoder, the option is located in the Queue panel’s menu.

2. Upgrade Graphics Driver

If you are unable to allow Mercury GPU acceleration, it is likely that you have to update the graphics driver to the most recent version, which will remove the warning that this effect requires GPU acceleration. Each brand has a dedicated updating page where you can download the driver for your particular application.

Step 1: Determine the type of graphics card you have.

For PC: Start > Run > Type “dxdiag” > Display

For Mac: Apple > About This Mac > Graphics

Step 2: Download your card’s most recent Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD driver from the manufacturer’s website.

Step 3: Install the most recent driver.

Step 4: Restart your computer.

Tips: Make sure to install the graphics driver completely. Using Nvida as an example, after downloading the latest driver from the Nvida official page, check the box for a clean install rather than proceeding with the express installation. This is because a clean install will delete any leftovers of old drivers from the system.

3. Restore GPU Acceleration by Saving as New Project

This method has been reported to work for some users’ existing projects. To begin, delete the media cache and make a fresh copy of the project using the “save as” option. Here are the specific steps:

Step 1: In Premiere Pro, go to the Preferences menu and select the Media Cache tab. Then, on the right, tap the blue Delete button.

Step 2:To save the existing project as a new project, go to the File menu and select Save As.

Step 3: Restart the computer after quitting Premiere Pro.

Step 4: Start the project, copy and paste the sequence into a new sequence, and then repeat step 2 to save it as a new project.

Step 5: Exit the program and start the computer again.

When you start the project, the GPU acceleration should be active. You should now be able to apply GPU-accelerated effects without encountering the red banner that says “This effect requires GPU acceleration.” If not, you can try another method listed in this post.

4. Remove Outdated Third-Party Extensions

When some third-party plug-ins are troublesome, the GPU acceleration not available error may appear. For example, the plug-in may have become invalid after you updated Premiere Pro, or it may have been a trial when you installed it and has now expired.

To uninstall third-party plugins, close Premiere Pro and use one of the three methods listed below:

1. Use the uninstaller that ran with the extension when you first installed it.
2. Locate the Plug-ins folder in Premiere’s installation file, eliminate the extension you no longer require, and clear the trash.
3. Activate the Adobe Extensions Manager for your software version. It differs between the CC and CS versions.

5. Operate the GPUSniffer executable from the Premiere installation folder. 

Running the GPUSniffer is another rarely discussed fix for “This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration.”

The general idea behind the fix is as follows: Premiere Pro may fail to acknowledge the graphic card on your computer, and you can force Premiere Pro to run the program that Premiere Pro uses to identify the video card. The program is an executable named GPUSniffers.exe that can be found in the Adobe Premiere Pro installation folder. It will, as the name implies, “sniff” out the GPU from the operating system.

Here’s a quick reference:

Step 1: If Premiere Pro is currently open on your computer, close it.

Step 2: Right-click the Premiere Pro shortcut and select Open file location.

Step 3: Enter GPUSniffer in the search box within the Premiere Pro installation folder.

Step 4: To run GPUSniffer.exe, double-click it. The command-line tool will begin to function.

Step 5: Wait for the window to close on its own before relaunching Premiere Pro.

6. Rearrange Effects to Diagnose Issues

In some cases, you can reorder the effects sequence to determine what is causing the “this effect requires GPU acceleration” warning. According to several users who reported the issue, the error may be caused by how the effects are layering one after the other.

You can rearrange the order of the effects in the effects control panel by dragging the FX icon, and you can toggle the effects on and off by clicking on the FX icon. Try it one at a time to see if it changes anything.

7. Upgrade the Hardware to Provide Enough VRAM

You may also receive the message “your system hardware does not support hardware acceleration for the current settings” occasionally. In that case, you must update the hardware and ensure that the VRAM meets the computing-intensive effect requirements.

According to Premiere Pro community support, a minimum of 2GB VRAM is required for GPU detection in a 1080p timeline, and a minimum of 4GB is required for a 4K timeline, and this is only the primary standard.

The following specifications are suggested:

• 4GB VRAM for 1080p
• 6GB VRAM for 4K
• 8GB or higher VRAM for 6K or higher dimensions

If you are still receiving the message “This effect requires GPU acceleration,” it is possible that you are editing VR HD content. In that case, 6GB is a good starting point; for 4K and 8K, more VRAM and CUDA 9.2 are required. 

You must have lightning-fast editing performance if you want to edit video like a pro. GPU acceleration is one of the most effective ways to improve video editing results in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

Adobe Premiere Pro only uses the CPU under normal circumstances. The CPU handles video editing, rendering, and much other processing, while the GPU only assists in processing.

However, once GPU acceleration is enabled, the hardcore procedures are split between the CPU and the GPU. What happens when two beasts are combined?

In this case, performance significantly improves, saving you valuable time, collaborating at your brain speed, and completing processes before you lose a creative idea.

So, if your computer has a GPU, turn on GPU acceleration to make the best use of your time.

FAQs on How to Enable GPU Acceleration in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018

Originally posted on September 20, 2022 @ 5:33 am