GPU acceleration is crucial to editing since it drastically improves the loading and rendering speed of the final project’s effects, editing, or compiling.  GPUs are specifically built to handle certain types of calculations such as lighting, post-processing, and texture streaming. As such, if you use your CPU instead of the GPU for these effects, your overall productivity when using Adobe software would undoubtedly diminish.  This article will show you how to resolve this issue and prevent it from occurring in the future.

What Causes “This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration” Error?

The causes for this issue are primarily due to GPU compatibility issues, wrong settings, or outdated software and driver versions.  In some rarer cases, a third-party application might be blocking your GPUs functionality, such as overclocking software or external Adobe plugins.

How to Fix “This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration”

There are various methods to fix this error message. Some of them are discussed below:

Update Your GPUs Drivers

Drivers become outdated most commonly if the automatic operating system updates are disabled. You can update drivers manually or by forcing the system to find and download the latest available ones automatically.  When updating just your GPU driver, follow these steps: Another quick way to update your GPU driver for NVIDIA is to use GeForce Experience. If you don’t have it installed, you can download it from the NVIDIAs page.  Once GeForce Experience is installed, it will automatically check and download the best and latest possible drivers for your GPU.  If you are the owner of an AMD GPU, use the same process but use the AMD Adrenaline software instead. 

Toggle GPU Acceleration Within Adobe Premiere Pro

This solution works if, for some reason, this setting is disabled within the software. This setting defaults the effects rendering to be handled solely by the GPU instead of the CPU.  Here is how you turn it on: Sometimes when the Adobe software performs automatic updates, some settings might reset or change, so this is the way to ensure that GPU acceleration is turned on by default for your Adobe software. 

Change the Order of Your Effects in the Timeline

This step is not concrete and depends on the effects that you have on your timeline. The logic is as follows, navigate to the left side effects panel and try toggling one effect at a time off. This will usually resolve the issue since some effects, when combined or put in a different order, can cause your GPU to stop being used for rendering. 

Download and Install the CUDA Toolkit for NVIDIA

This NVIDIA toolkit helps specifically with providing everything needed for applications to run whilst using GPU acceleration. The package includes a developer runtime environment as well as documentation and many other useful tools. The reason we are using it is that it can also fix the hardware acceleration issue for Adobe.Here are the proper steps to download the CUDA toolkit for NVIDIA GPUs:  When the CUDA toolkit has been installed, restart your PC and check if the issue persists on your Adobe software. 

Run Your Adobe Software in Compatibility Mode

Using a different compatibility mode is a clever workaround for many application issues. Here is how to try this fix: If you still encounter the error message “This effect requires GPU acceleration,” open up the compatibility menu again. Still, this time checks the option, ‘Run this program in compatibility mode’ and then select Windows 7 or any other version and click apply. Restart your Adobe program and see if this resolves the issue.

Check That Your Adobe Software Is Up to Date

Sometimes if your Adobe version is outdated, you can get a compatibility issue where your GPU can no longer be adequately utilized. Thankfully updating any adobe software is incredibly easy and straightforward, so here is how to do it:

Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 18Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 96Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 57Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 21Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 8Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 44Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 22Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 1Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 51Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 33Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 45


title: “Fixed This Effect Requires Gpu Acceleration Error” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-12” author: “Carmen Burchfield”


GPU acceleration is crucial to editing since it drastically improves the loading and rendering speed of the final project’s effects, editing, or compiling.  GPUs are specifically built to handle certain types of calculations such as lighting, post-processing, and texture streaming. As such, if you use your CPU instead of the GPU for these effects, your overall productivity when using Adobe software would undoubtedly diminish.  This article will show you how to resolve this issue and prevent it from occurring in the future.

What Causes “This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration” Error?

The causes for this issue are primarily due to GPU compatibility issues, wrong settings, or outdated software and driver versions.  In some rarer cases, a third-party application might be blocking your GPUs functionality, such as overclocking software or external Adobe plugins.

How to Fix “This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration”

There are various methods to fix this error message. Some of them are discussed below:

Update Your GPUs Drivers

Drivers become outdated most commonly if the automatic operating system updates are disabled. You can update drivers manually or by forcing the system to find and download the latest available ones automatically.  When updating just your GPU driver, follow these steps: Another quick way to update your GPU driver for NVIDIA is to use GeForce Experience. If you don’t have it installed, you can download it from the NVIDIAs page.  Once GeForce Experience is installed, it will automatically check and download the best and latest possible drivers for your GPU.  If you are the owner of an AMD GPU, use the same process but use the AMD Adrenaline software instead. 

Toggle GPU Acceleration Within Adobe Premiere Pro

This solution works if, for some reason, this setting is disabled within the software. This setting defaults the effects rendering to be handled solely by the GPU instead of the CPU.  Here is how you turn it on: Sometimes when the Adobe software performs automatic updates, some settings might reset or change, so this is the way to ensure that GPU acceleration is turned on by default for your Adobe software. 

Change the Order of Your Effects in the Timeline

This step is not concrete and depends on the effects that you have on your timeline. The logic is as follows, navigate to the left side effects panel and try toggling one effect at a time off. This will usually resolve the issue since some effects, when combined or put in a different order, can cause your GPU to stop being used for rendering. 

Download and Install the CUDA Toolkit for NVIDIA

This NVIDIA toolkit helps specifically with providing everything needed for applications to run whilst using GPU acceleration. The package includes a developer runtime environment as well as documentation and many other useful tools. The reason we are using it is that it can also fix the hardware acceleration issue for Adobe.Here are the proper steps to download the CUDA toolkit for NVIDIA GPUs:  When the CUDA toolkit has been installed, restart your PC and check if the issue persists on your Adobe software. 

Run Your Adobe Software in Compatibility Mode

Using a different compatibility mode is a clever workaround for many application issues. Here is how to try this fix: If you still encounter the error message “This effect requires GPU acceleration,” open up the compatibility menu again. Still, this time checks the option, ‘Run this program in compatibility mode’ and then select Windows 7 or any other version and click apply. Restart your Adobe program and see if this resolves the issue.

Check That Your Adobe Software Is Up to Date

Sometimes if your Adobe version is outdated, you can get a compatibility issue where your GPU can no longer be adequately utilized. Thankfully updating any adobe software is incredibly easy and straightforward, so here is how to do it:

Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 12Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 84Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 70Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 90Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 88Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 72Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 82Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 41Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 90Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 2Fixed   This Effect Requires GPU Acceleration  Error - 36