Google Chrome is furnished with hardware acceleration, a component that takes advantage of your computer’s GPU to speed up the procedure and speed up CPU available time. However, sometimes this feature can misbehave due to driver instability, and disabling it can save you a few headaches.
What is hardware acceleration?
Hardware acceleration refers to when a program uses computer hardware to perform software more efficiently than it is capable of. Hardware was designed to perform some tasks faster than software running on CPU alone.
In Chrome, hardware acceleration uses your computer’s graphics processing unit (GPU) to handle graphics-related tasks, such as video, games, or anything that requires mathematical acceleration. Is. Finishing certain tasks allows your CPU to work tirelessly on everything, while the GPU handles the process that was designed to run it.
While this sounds great in most cases, sometimes hardware speeds can cause Chrome to lag, freeze, or crash. Because each computer is slightly different, this issue may occur with the GPU or its associated driver. If you suspect that speeding up the hardware is the culprit, it is best to disable it and see if it fixes the problem.
How to turn hardware acceleration on or off
- By default, hardware acceleration is enabled on Chrome, so consider disabling it first.
- Fire Chrome, click the menu icon, and then click “Settings“. Alternatively, you can type chrome: // settings / in your Omnibox to go there directly.
- In the Settings tab, scroll down and then click “Advanced.”
- Under Settings, at the bottom of the page, click Advanced
- Look down to the System section and discover the “Utilization hardware increasing speed when available” setting. Flip the change to the “Off” position and then click “Relaunch” to apply the changes.
Warning: Make sure you save whatever you’re working on. Chrome reopens tabs that were reopened before launch but do not store any data contained in them.
If you would rather wait for Chrome to restart and finish anything you are working on, close the tab. The next time you close it and reopen it, Chrome will apply it.
To confirm that it is completely disabled, type chrome: // GPU / in the Omni box and press Enter. When hardware acceleration is disabled, most items will read “Software Only, Hardware Acceleration Disabled” under “Graphics Feature Status”.
If you’re looking to enable or re-enable hardware acceleration, go back to Chrome: // settings and toggle “Use hardware acceleration when available” when setting to the “On” position. Then, click “Relaunch” to apply the change.
What does hardware acceleration do in Chrome?
There’s a way to enable hardware acceleration buried in Chrome’s settings, which may or may not improve Chrome’s performance on your computer. Hardware acceleration allows the CPU to load off some page rendering and loading tasks in your system’s GPU.
Do I need hardware acceleration in Chrome?
Hardware acceleration allows the CPU to load off some page rendering and loading tasks in your system’s GPU. … I don’t think there’s much more to it, but maybe it will help your system run Chrome more efficiently. Also, it is worth investigating to see if you have hardware acceleration enabled.