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Troubleshooting: when Adobe Premiere Pro can’t detect GPU (graphics card)

Adobe Premiere can't detect GPU graphics card
Adobe Premiere can’t detect GPU graphics card

Adobe Premiere Pro is probably the best video editing software for 360 videos because of its ever-growing list of capabilities. But it does have bugs, one of which is that sometimes, it can’t find your GPU (graphics card). Here’s how to solve it.

A graphics card is practically a requirement for editing 360 videos on Adobe Premiere Pro. Without a graphics card, there are many 360-related effects that you won’t be able to use — even something as basic as VR Projection which is necessary for leveling the horizon.

BTW, if you want to get a graphics card for your PC, I recommend the most recent family of NVidia GTX cards. NVidia tends to have better support among hardware and software. High-end NVidia graphics cards can be pricey, but you don’t need to use the absolute best card. On one of my PCs, I use the affordable GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, and it works just fine and it can even work with an Oculus Rift.

Going back to the subject of this post, sometimes Premiere can’t find your graphics card. I notice this tends to happen more frequently with Adobe Premiere CC 2018, especially when every time it is updated. If this happens, you’ll get a warning that a particular effect needs a GPU to work. You can also check by going to File… Project Settings… and under the general tab, look at Renderer. If it says Mercury Playback Engine Software Only and you can’t change it to any other setting, then it means Adobe is not detecting your GPU.

The solution is to close Premiere and run a program called GPUSniffer.exe. It is within the same folder as Premiere:

When Adobe can't find your graphics card, use GPUSniffer
When Adobe can’t find your graphics card, use GPUSniffer

Just double click on it and you’ll see a command prompt window popup. Just let it do its thing. When it is done, the window will close automatically and you can restart Premiere.  If GPUSniffer did not find your card, there are two things you should do:
1. Install the latest driver for your graphics card.
2. Disable the integrated graphics processor. You can also go to your Device Manager and look for the integrated graphics processor and disable it (log on as Admin, right click on it, and select disable). After you do those, then run GPUSniffer again.  BTW, You can do the same for the other Adobe software, such as After Effects, Media Encoder, etc.

I hope you found this tip helpful.  Did you know you can get 360Rumors articles like this emailed to you automatically? Just subscribe for free (no I won’t spam you).

About the author

Mic Ty

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  • After testing Adobe Premiere CC and Final Cut Pro X, I can tell it’s the latest that I prefer to use to edit 360 video. Maybe I didn’t find it but Premiere lacks an easy feature like the one in FCP that can hide the nadir, for example.

    • At the time i wrote this article, i was using a gtx 1050ti. I now use mostly a laptop with gtx 1070 sli. i still have a gtx 1080 desktop
      best regards,
      Mic

  • Hi all,
    How to fix Render video in ADOBE not using GPU (GTX 1050 Ti)?
    Enabled CUDA not working.

    My PC:
    CPU: Reyzen 5 1600
    RAM: 16GB
    GPU: GTX 1050 Ti
    Software: Adobe Affter Effect and Adobe Premiere
    Thanks all,

    • Hi Frank. Is the CUDA option available? Or it’s not showing up? Have you tried updating the gtx1050 driver and/or reinstalling premiere?

  • Can I activate the gpu acceleration in Premiere pro if I don’t have a gpu but have Intel integrated graphics ?

  • I’ve been searching for a solution for the past month, and the solution was as simple as double clicking an exe file. thanks a lot for this!

  • I noticed my version of Premiere pro was missing a bunch of dll files, so I couldn’t run the gpu sniffer. Though after I got the missing dlls and ran the gpu sniffer, it’s still showing the software renderer with it being greyed out. If it helps, I have a full AMD build using the Ryzen 7 5800X and RX 6600XT, with 64GB.

  • I am using Adobe Premiere 2022 and I have a GTX 1050ti with an iGPU that I disabled.

    I have tried the GPUSniffer Solution multiple times (ran it as admin and everything) and it detects my GPU but says there are 0 CUDA Devices, only OpenCL. Sometimes it just disables the Dropdown Options menu overall, greyed out, defaulted to Software Only! Please help me!