This effect requires GPU acceleration in After Effects or Premiere Pro

Are you experiencing This effect requires GPU acceleration error message in Premiere Pro or After Effects? Some users have reported that they keep getting this error prompt while adding effects to their clips. If you also face the same error, this post will help you resolve it.

This effect requires GPU acceleration in After Effects or Premiere Pro [Fix]

If you receive This effect requires GPU acceleration error in Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects on Windows 11/10, here are the fixes to use:

1. Turn on the Mercury GPU Acceleration.
2. Make sure your graphics drivers are up-to-date.
3. Reorder the effects.
4. Run GPUSniffer.
5. Update or uninstall third-party party plugins.
6. Delete the media cache and save the project as a new project.
7. Reinstall Adobe Premiere Pro/After Effects.

1] Turn on the Mercury GPU Acceleration

As the error message indicates, you need to enable GPU acceleration to apply a specific effect in Premiere Pro or After Effects. So, enable the GPU acceleration feature in the app and then see if the error is fixed. Here’s how you can do that:

After Effects:

• First, click on the File menu from the top menubar of After Effects.
• Now, select the Project Settings option.
• In the opened Project Settings window, navigate to the Video Rendering and Effects tab.
• Next, select the Mercury GPU Acceleration option from the drop-down menu and press the OK button to save changes.
• Finally, try applying the effect and see if the error message is stopped.

Premiere Pro:

The method to enable GPU acceleration in Premiere Pro is similar to After Effects. First, click on File > Project Settings > General option. Now, set the Renderer to Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration and click the Ok button to save changes.

If you have GPU acceleration enabled yet you receive this error, you can use the next solution to fix the error.

Read: Fix Adobe Premiere Pro high CPU usage.

2] Make sure your graphics drivers are up-to-date

In some instances, this error could be triggered due to an outdated GPU driver. Hence, update your graphics driver to its latest version and see if the error is fixed. To do that, open Settings using Win+I and go to the Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates option. And download and install pending graphics driver updates. See if that helps. If not, try uninstalling and then performing a clean installation of graphics drivers to fix the error.

3] Reorder the effects

As per reports, this error could be triggered due to the order of effects in which they are applied to the clip. The effects are rendered in a specific order in Premiere Pro. Some effects are rendered on the CPU only, while others need GPU. If you add a GPU effect before the CPU-only effect, it will be rendered on the CPU. It is usually fine, but it might not work correctly with some GPU effects like VR effects. Thus, you might get the “This effect requires GPU acceleration” error message.

Hence, if the above scenario is applicable, you can change the order of effects from the Effect Controls window accordingly and check if the error is resolved. If you need to put the problematic GPU effect before the CPU-only effect, you can render the clips individually and merge them later.

You can also check the effect with which you are facing this error and then try to change its position to fix the error. Some users have reported that deleting other effects, like the VR De-Noise effect, helped them fix the error. Check if doing that helps you.

See: Adobe Media encoder not installed in Premiere Pro.

4] Run GPUSniffer

This error can also occur if Premiere Pro cannot detect the graphics card on your PC. As a result, it keeps throwing the “This effect requires GPU acceleration” error message. Now, if this scenario is applicable, you can force Premiere Pro to detect the correct GPU card.

To do that, you can use the dedicated program called GPUSniffer which comes with Premiere Pro. Let us see how:

First, close Adobe Premiere Pro using Task Manager.

Now, open File Explorer using Win+E and navigate to the installation directory of Premiere Pro. You are likely to find it at the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro location.

Next, look for the GPUSniffer.exe executable file and double-click on it to run it. It will then run in Command Prompt, and once the process is completed, the CMD window will close.

After that, relaunch Adobe Premiere Pro and check if the error message is gone.

Read: Premiere Pro crashing or stops working on Windows.

5] Update or uninstall third-party party plugins

If you have some outdated third-party plugins and effects installed in Premiere Pro or After Effects, you might get the “This effect requires GPU acceleration” error message. So, you can update the plugins. If that doesn’t work, uninstall the suspicious plugins and effects to fix the error.

First, press Win+E to open File Explorer and go to the Premiere Pro installation folder. By default, you will find it at the following location:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CC <version number>

Now, move to the Plug-Ins folder and delete all third-party plugins.

Once done, reopen Premiere Pro and check if the error is fixed.

You can then download the latest version of third-party plugins and effects you want to use from the Adobe website and see if the error occurs again. If not, great. If yes, you can again uninstall the plugins to fix the error.

Read: How to stabilize Shaky Video Footage in Adobe Premiere Pro?

6] Delete the media cache and save the project as a new project

A few users have reported that deleting the media cache and saving the project as a new project helped them fix the error. So, you can try doing the same and check if it helps. Here’s how:

In Premiere Pro, click on the Edit > Preferences option and then move to the Media Cache tab. Now, press the Delete button next to the Remove Media Cache Files option.

In case this error occurs in After Effects, go to the After Effects menu > Preferences option, navigate to the Media and Disk Cache tab, and press the Clean Database & Cache button.

After that, you can use the File > Save as option to save the project as a new project and see if it helps.

Read: Adobe After Effects high CPU and RAM usage.

7] Reinstall Adobe Premiere Pro/After Effects

At last, you can reinstall the Premiere Pro or After Effects app to fix this error. It could be a corrupted or incomplete installation of the software causing the error. So, you can uninstall the Adobe app and then reinstall it to fix the error.

To uninstall Adobe Premiere Pro, open the Settings app using Win+I and go to the Apps > Installed apps section. Now, scroll down to the Premiere Pro app and select the three-dot menu button. After that, click on the Uninstall option and follow the prompted steps to complete the process. Similarly, you can uninstall After Effects.

Once done, make sure you delete all the leftover files and registry entries associated with the app. You can use a free uninstaller software to avoid doing all the work manually.

Next, restart your PC, download the latest version of Premier Pro or After Effects, and install it on your PC. Hopefully, you won’t get this error anymore.

Does Premiere Pro use GPU acceleration?

Yes, Premiere Pro uses GPU acceleration to render some effects. Also, it uses your GPU in order to divide the processing load between both CPU and GPU. It helps Premiere Pro to run efficiently and achieve a better performance. However, most of the work is done by the CPU.

Now read: How to make Adobe After Effects run faster?