How to Disable Hardware-video Decoder Windows 8

Chances are yous've seen a "hardware acceleration" choice when using diverse applications and devices. You may have even needed to enable or disable it to heave performance/prevent bugs in one of your favorite applications, but you may not take known why.

In this commodity we explain everything you lot need to know nearly hardware acceleration and whether or not your apps might benefit from using it.

Defining Hardware Dispatch

Hardware dispatch is a term used to describe tasks beingness offloaded to devices and hardware which specialize in it. By default in well-nigh computers and applications, the CPU is taxed commencement and foremost earlier other pieces of hardware are. While this is fine in most general usage cases, particularly if someone has a strong CPU, there are others where information technology may be smart for your computer to utilize the other components in your system. This is where hardware acceleration comes into play, and we'll requite a few pop usage cases:

• Audio cards tin make use of hardware dispatch to play back and/or tape higher-quality sound.
• Graphics cards tin make utilise of hardware acceleration to play dorsum higher-quality movies, videos and games faster. They are also better at physics and fast mathematical calculations than a CPU.
• Real-time ray-tracing and DLSS on Nvidia graphics cards is hardware-accelerated, not by the GPU, simply by dedicated Tensor and RT cores for those tasks.

While hardware acceleration tin can be divers as pretty much any task that'south offloaded to something that isn't the CPU, GPUs and audio cards are typically the almost popular examples used throughout your software. Your CPU lonely is technically capable of anything that these devices tin can do, especially if it boasts integrated graphics (every bit many do present) but allows specialized hardware to practice the job as typically the better selection.

Why You lot May Need to Disable It

Unfortunately, hardware dispatch doesn't always work as smoothly as it should. The first time I think encountering the option was when I disabled it in Chrome considering it was seemingly making my browser run much less stably.

Here are the cases where yous should probably disable hardware acceleration:

• If your CPU is really strong and your other components are really weak, acceleration may really be ineffective in comparison to but letting the powerhouse take intendance of things. Additionally, if your components are decumbent to overheating/are damaged in any way, intensive use through hardware acceleration may be causing problems y'all wouldn't experience otherwise.
• The software designed to utilize the hardware isn't doing information technology well or tin't run equally stably as it does when using simply the CPU. This is a common reason to disable hardware acceleration in an app's options, unfortunately, but information technology does happen.

When You Should Enable It

Of course, hardware acceleration isn't all bad. When working every bit intended, information technology's actually pretty great.

Here are some cases where you should enable hardware acceleration in your apps:

• When you have a powerful, stable GPU, enabling hardware acceleration will allow you to utilize it to its full extent in all supported applications, not merely your games. In Chrome, GPU hardware dispatch typically allows much smoother browsing and media consumption.
• In video editing/rendering programs like Sony Vegas (or streaming programs like OBS), enabling hardware acceleration can permit y'all to utilize specialized hardware located in supported devices, typically the GPU or CPU. (Intel QuickSync, for case, is an addition to their modern CPUs designed for fast video rendering/encoding).

In short, enable hardware acceleration wherever you can if you take good hardware and disable it if you have bugs/stability issues.

How to Check Whether You Take Hardware Acceleration Enabled In Windows

On an Os level, hardware acceleration volition exist automatically enabled on your operating system and most likely you won't be able to tweak it. What you can practice, however, is brand sure that Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling is enabled.

Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling is a feature added in newer versions of Windows 10 that reduces GPU latency across the lath and can even meliorate functioning in a few scenarios.

To enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling, but open Start, blazon "Graphics settings", and click the corresponding entry.

In the window that pops upwards, click the sliders for "Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling" and "Variable refresh rate," if visible. You'll need to restart after making this change if you lot want to utilise it.

If neither options are visible and yous've ensured that your graphics drivers are up to appointment, your card might merely not back up these features. At the time of writing, there's trivial known reason not to have these enabled when they're available, but you tin can disable them if you lot experience whatever issues.

Note: If this feature doesn't announced in Windows for you, you lot might be putting your machine at risk past forcibly enabling information technology in registry. Exist careful!

If for some reason yous wish to strength this option on through the registry, open First, then type "Registry" and click "Registry Editor."

One time inside your Registry Editor, yous'll want to go to

ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlGraphicsDrivers

in the address bar.

Right-click "HwSchMode," click "Modify," then set up it to 2 for On or 1 for Off if desired.

Afterward a restart, y'all should exist done!

Departing Words

We hope this article helped y'all come up to a improve understanding of hardware dispatch and how information technology'southward used in your favorite applications. If you are looking to purchase a powerful graphics card that can back up hardware acceleration, check out our graphics card buying guide here.

Paradigm Credit: mrtippage on WikiMedia Commons

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