How to Disable Hardware Acceleration in Windows 10The term Hardware acceleration might sound familiar to the users of desktops or laptops. In fact, there is always someone somewhere encountering events related to hardware acceleration on a regular basis. This option might come up when you use different applications or devices.
However, most of them hardly know what it is and what it does. It is because it often gets imbricated with terms like graphics card, audio card rendering and so on that the term hardware acceleration becomes confounding to understand.
In our current Windows 10 troubleshoot, we will talk about what hardware acceleration is, why you should or should not use it and how to disable it in Windows 10 in details. So if you need to know the particulars about hardware acceleration in Window 10, then please stay with us.
What is Hardware Acceleration?
By definition, hardware acceleration is the implementation of specialized computer hardware to decrease latency and increase efficiency in performance of some functions of a computer than the software is capable of that operates on a general-purpose CPU (Central Processing Unit).
In simple words, when you try to execute a certain task more speedily by using custom made hardware than your CPU able to, it is called hardware acceleration. The most common and well-known examples of hardware accelerators are graphics card (GPUs-Graphics Processing Units) and audio card. Others might include FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays, and ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits).
Normally, while carrying out its task, an application uses the CPU of the computer. Now suppose, your CPU is of average quality; meaning, it is not strong enough to execute heavy duty missions. So what happens when you try to perform heavy work in a software using an average quality CPU? It slows down the task, making it hard to carry out; often resulting in freezing the computer. That’s where hardware acceleration comes to be useful.
When your CPU’s capacity is less than the requirements of the task you are performing, a dedicated hardware can take the responsibility of boosting up the performance. A particular application uses the dedicated hardware modules so that it can speed up the procedure and execute the action more proficiently.
For instance, the audio card in your Windows 10 is the example of hardware dedicated to prompt the audio system of your pc. The CPU of your pc will offload some work regarding sound coordination to this dedicated audio card. As a result, you will get much clearer sound as well as high quality playback and recording. The idea is to lessen some pressure on your CPU. In this way, the general performance of your pc will get even better at the same time.
Instructions are carried out in a consecutive manner, that is, one after the other, in most general-purpose processors. Hardware acceleration allows you to move all graphics and text rendering to the GPU from the CPU in your Windows 10. Thus, it accelerates graphics performance and rendering speed which makes your task execution much faster.
Apart from an increased speed-up, there are few other advantages of hardware acceleration. For example- improved battery life, decreased latency, healthier utilization of space and functional mechanism, and amplified parallelism and bandwidth that are available on an integrated circuit.
Why do I Need Hardware Acceleration?
The 2nd question people ask after knowing what hardware acceleration is, is “do I need hardware acceleration?” To answer it simply, yes. You do. In fact, you should enable it if it is supported by your system. The amount of advantages it offers is really grand in the large scheme of things. We will discuss a few of them for your benefit.
First of all, as we have said before, a dedicated hardware takes over the job of managing a particular task; therefore, relieves the CPU of some burden. Due to the reduced workload, your CPU is able to act much faster than before. Thereby, the general computing speed of your pc boosts up.
Secondly, for enthusiastic gamers, hardware acceleration is kind of dire need. Unlike the pre-HD period games, most modern games require high quality graphics for excellent visualization and smooth running. Without a proper GPU, the animations might come out in a broken phase. Unnecessary to say, the speed rate will be sluggish. Even worse, some 3D games probably won’t run at all.
On the other hand, using a GPU aka graphics card can make the animation quite natural in the eye, the graphic effects cleaner. You get your desired speed and 3D rendering; the way 3D games are supposed to be. Same goes for movies.
Thirdly, most websites these days use illustrated images or video clips. These contents entail graphics card support to load quickly and correctly. The lack of hardware acceleration can cause really slow loading of these graphics-laden contents. In addition to that, the display of the page can be out of order.
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Of course, the reason behind the slow loading can be your slow internet connection. Nonetheless, there is a fat chance that not having a GPU is what causing it. Browsing can get really bothersome and time consuming in this way. If you have a GPU, then enabling hardware acceleration can speed up the process significantly; allowing you much smoother browsing experience.
Another reason is multitasking. If you are someone who has to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, hardware acceleration is a must for you. When you are operating more than one application at the same time, hardware acceleration makes sure to hand over some pressure to the GPU from the CPU. When the workload is shared between the CPU and GPU, work becomes swifter and more prompt.
So you see, there is a huge benefit to hardware acceleration.
How do I Know If I have Hardware Acceleration?
Now-a-days, computers have hardware acceleration enabled by default. In a few computers, it might have to be manually enabled. In case of applications, most are built with the ability to work with hardware acceleration and. Say for example- your Chrome browser also comes with hardware acceleration enabled in it. To be sure,
- Open your Chrome browser. Go to
- Click on the Advanced option on the left bar > Choose
- You can if your browser hardware acceleration is turned on here.
Point to be noted, in order for your applications to be able to use hardware acceleration; your system has to support the hardware acceleration facility. As in, the graphics driver in your device has to be installed. Unless this feature is available in your system, your applications will not be able to use it no matter how qualified they are to work with it. To check whether your system supports hardware acceleration in Windows 10, follow the steps.
- Click on the Windows 10 Start Write Control Panel.
- Select Display > Change Display Settings > Advanced Display Settings > Display adaptor properties for Display 1
- Look for a tab named
If the Troubleshoot tab is not there, it means your pc does not support hardware acceleration. Ordinarily this occurs because either your graphics driver is outdated or broken. In such case, try to update your graphics driver.
How to Disable Hardware Acceleration in Windows 10?
In spite of the beneficial world that hardware acceleration opens up to you, there might come instances when you need to turn it off. For example- your chrome browser suddenly stops working. When you check, you find out that you have disable hardware acceleration which is what making your browser unstable. It can happen to other applications as well.
Also, if your dedicated hardware is damaged or weak in comparison to your CPU, turning on hardware acceleration might not actually serve your purpose. Rather it will cause overheating problem resulting in rapid power consumption.
Whatever your reason is, if you want disable your hardware acceleration, follow the steps below:
- Click on the Windows 10 Start Write Control Panel.
- Select Display
- Click Change Display Settings.
- Click Advanced Display Settings.
- Select Display adaptor properties for Display 1
- Go to the tab named Click Change Settings.
- Now Display Adapter Troubleshooter will appear. Slide the pointer whole side to the left and your hardware acceleration will be disabled.
For some, the Change Settings option might be greyed out. It means you cannot disable your hardware acceleration.
CONCLUSION
The CPU of your computer is capable of doing all the works by itself. That’s why it is called the powerhouse of the computer. However, it is not recommended to use this flexibility and burden the CPU with heavy works like graphics rendering. That’s for hardware acceleration to do. Even if you have the choice to disable hardware acceleration according to your need, this settings is best left unchanged.