Do this before you make your first video.
Your videos are drawn by your computer’s graphics card. If your browser isn’t allowed to use it, playback is choppy and exporting takes much longer. Checking takes one minute.
This page tests whether your browser is using your graphics card.
Pick your browser. Three steps.
Google Chrome
- Copy
chrome://settings/system, open a new tab, paste it into the address bar and press Enter. - Turn on Use graphics acceleration when available.
- Click Relaunch. Chrome reopens with all your tabs.
Microsoft Edge
- Copy
edge://settings/system, open a new tab, paste it into the address bar and press Enter. - Turn on Use graphics acceleration when available.
- Click Restart. Edge reopens with all your tabs.
Brave
- Copy
brave://settings/system, open a new tab, paste it into the address bar and press Enter. - Turn on Use graphics acceleration when available.
- Click Relaunch.
Firefox
- Copy
about:preferences, open a new tab, paste it into the address bar and press Enter. - Scroll to Performance, untick Use recommended performance settings, then tick Use hardware acceleration when available.
- Close Firefox completely and open it again.
Opera
- Copy
opera://settings, open a new tab, paste it into the address bar and press Enter. - Search the settings for hardware and turn on Use hardware acceleration when available.
- Close Opera completely and open it again.
Safari on a Mac
- Safari always uses your graphics card, so there is nothing to turn on.
- If it still feels slow, close other heavy apps and tabs, and keep macOS up to date.
- For the smoothest results, Chrome or Edge on the same Mac also works well.
Done? Come back to this page. The check at the top should turn green.
Turned it on and it’s still slow?
Setting is on but it’s still slow? Fully quit the browser
Open the ⋮ menu and choose Exit (closing the window isn’t enough), then open the browser again. After a graphics hiccup, Chrome and Edge quietly switch to slow mode and stay there until they fully restart, even with the setting on.
Reset browser experiments
Open chrome://flags (or edge://flags), click Reset all at the top, then relaunch. A changed experiment can switch the graphics card off.
Windows: tell Windows to use the graphics card
Open Settings → System → Display → Graphics. Find your browser in the list (or add it), choose High performance, save, then close and reopen the browser.
Laptop: plug it in
Many laptops turn their graphics card down on battery to save power. Plug in the charger before you make a video.
Update your graphics driver
Get the newest driver from your computer maker, or from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. An old driver can make the browser turn graphics acceleration off on its own.
Check what your browser reports
In Chrome or Edge, open chrome://gpu (or edge://gpu). Near the top, most lines should say Hardware accelerated. If they say Software only, one of the fixes above is still needed.