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vito.pirrello
vito.pirrello
Known Participant
October 8, 2026

Playback Issues since version 26.3

  • October 8, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 21 views

Since version 26.3, I’ve been experiencing some strange playback issues. When I create a new project, everything runs smoothly, but the further I get with the work, the more performance drops making it impossible to work. I monitored performance using Task Manager and recorded the following datas during playback.


version 26.2.2:
- CPU 22%
- GPU nvidia 50%
- GPU intel 32%

version 26.5.2 (initially): same performance

version 26.5.2 (after a couple of hours):
- CPU 97%
- GPU nvidia 10%
- GPU intel 15%


Clearing the cache seems to work, but only temporarily. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the thumbnails very often reload when I switch between different timelines. I should point out that I often work on projects with a large number of clips (around 600), whereas lighter projects seem to run more smoothly.

The files I use are MP4s recorded with a Sony a7s III using the HEVC 10-bit 4:2:2 codec. I know they aren't ideal for editing but, up to version 26.2.2, Premiere can handles. I work on a MSI Creator 17 with Windows 11, Intel i7-11800H, 32Gb of RAM and Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. I checked for pending updates, including for the Intel GPU, and everything is up to date.

      3 replies

      Amy the Stuv
      Community Manager
      Amy the StuvCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      October 8, 2026

      Hello ​@vito.pirrello 

      Welcome back to the Premiere Forums.

      To help us narrow this down, could you clarify:

      • Does the slowdown affect normal forward playback, timeline scrubbing/seeking, or both?
      • Does closing and reopening the project—without quitting Premiere—temporarily restore performance?
      • Win11/driver: What version and build driver?
      • Project Size: About how big is your project file? Is it in a Production? I saw you mention that there’s about 600 media clips presently. Have you considered using Premiere Productions to help manage those?
      • Proxy workflow: Since you’re using HEVC 10bit 4:2:2 mp4’s have you considered or are you already using proxies to assist with playback?
      • Plugins: Are you using any plugins? Have you tried SHIFT launching Premiere and temporarily disabling and clearing plugin cache. Also check that they’re all updated, as well.

      Thank you for the detailed report. I’ll try to reproduce this in house, but these issues that take time to show themselves can be tricky to diagnose. Your information has been very helpful.

      Amy

      vito.pirrello
      vito.pirrelloAuthor
      Known Participant
      October 8, 2026

      Hi Amy,

      • the slowdown affects both playback and scrolling/moving along the timeline 
      • closing and reopening the project, without quitting Premiere, doesn’t restore performance

      Thanks for your help,

      Vito

      Amy the Stuv
      Community Manager
      Amy the StuvCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      October 8, 2026

      Happy to try to help. Thank you for replying. A few more questions came up after doing some more research into the matter:

      • In Preferences > Media, is hardware-accelerated decoding enabled? If your version offers a decoder/device choice, which one is selected?
      • During playback, could you check Task Manager > Performance and set each GPU’s graph to Video Decode? A screenshot at the start and again after playback becomes slow—along with CPU and memory use—would help distinguish decoder fallback from overall GPU utilization.
      • When you say playback becomes slow after a couple of hours, what are you typically doing in Premiere during that time? Roughly how much is active playback or scrubbing versus making cuts, adding/importing clips or sequences, switching timelines, or applying graphics/MOGRTs/effects? Is Premiere ever mostly idle?
      • Does the slowdown seem tied mainly to elapsed time, to the project growing, or to a particular action? If possible, note roughly how many clips or sequences are in the project while playback is smooth and when it slows down. Do the thumbnail reloads when switching timelines happen around the same time as the slowdown?
      • Please include the exact Intel and NVIDIA driver versions. 
      • Please also note whether the project, media, and media cache are on local or network storage.

      This will help me with a reproduction on our end so we can really look under the hood to see what’s going on. If you’re willing to share a project with this issue and an assortment of clips, I can supply you with a private upload link via DM that I could share with the engineering team for troubleshooting purposes only.

       

      Thank you,

      Amy

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