No 3D GPU utilization in Media Encoder 2025

[tscott93]

Hello,

We have a huge problem: GPU Utilization is virtually nonexistent when exporting an After Effects project using AME. This has been a problem since v25.0 last year, and we never had an issue with v24.

I have tested this across several computers in my workplace. It's so bad that a brand-new laptop with a RTX4080 12GB is being out-performed by a 2021 MacBook Pro 14". (It's a Windows-only issue it seems)

I've attached screenshots of the GPU utilization from the same project, same computer, and same export settings. When exporting from AE directly, the GPU is almost fully utilized and in AME it's very low to none.

Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but trying to export the same project from After Effects directly eats all of the available RAM and it crashes, even on a 32GB machine with only 4GB allowed for other apps. It also affects projects without 3D objects.

Here's the specs for one of the PCs I've tested (from the screenshots):

Windows 11 Pro

Ryzen 7 2700x

32GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB

On that machine, it takes over 2 hours to render the project.
On the 2021 MacBook Pro 14", it takes 13 minutes.
On several other machines, from powerful to pitiful, it took anywhere from an hour to 3 hours to render, sometimes crashing entirely.

The project (2.5GB including assets) contains .glb files exported from Blender, text, motion blur effects, and Illustrator layers. The project does NOT have any adjustment layers.

Export settings:
Renderer is set to Mercury/CUDA
Source is 3840 x 2160 - 29.97 fps
- Video: Based on source, Hardware Encoding
- Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
- Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 20.00 Mbps

I am happy to share the test file with any Adobe staff, and any comments or help would be greatly appreciated.

[tscott93]

I also forgot to add that updating to the latest NVIDIA studio drivers did nothing to help the performance on two of the machines tested.

[Will27540326c9gz]

I had a similar problem to this recently, but with Premiere & Media Encoder. Figured out what the issue was: I was using an audio effects suit from "BorisFX" called "CrumblePop". Once I removed those audio effects from the layers and audio mixer, exports started using GPU again in Media Encoder.

Mind you, Premiere Pro rendered it just fine with GPU (although the timeline performance lagged a bit). But it was the issue causing ME not to use GPU. So look into what plugins you're using, maybe run AE in safe mode or with all the effects disabled and try rendering.

[tscott93]

@Will27540326c9gz- That's a good workaround, but sadly that is the first thing we tried to no avail.

I did find out this morning that GPU utilization drops to nothing during a specific part of the video. It appears to happen right when the .glb files contain animations themselves rather than the begining of the project, where the 3D assets are just being rotated and such.

I'm thinking AE/AME hits a really high GPU utilization and something is crashing or choking at that point. It doesn't seem to be related to whether it's a 3D object or not though, it seems to apply to anything that's accelerated as mentioned in other posts on here.

[Sebastian303]

Hi tscott93,

thanks so much for posting this and also doing the initial triage. We had some reports of similar kind but were never able to reproduce in house, which is absolutely necessary to find the root cause. You metnioned you'd be willing to share your project with us? I'd be happy to gather some AE and AME folks to look into it.

Best regards, Sebastian

[tscott93]

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for the reply. I'm happy to share the project with you. I sent a link to @EckiAME a few days ago. It's a very 3D-intensive file with .glb animations, but seems to really exacerbate the problem with GPU utilization. Other projects with accelerated effects take a long time to render too though.

Thanks

[EckiAME]

Sorry, I was out on PTO. I am downloading your project and will look into it. Sorry for the delay.

[Leandro384159004w49]

con la ultima actualizacion de Media Encore dejo de funcionar en mi pc aceleracion de GPU  abril 2025

CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 8700G w/ Radeon 780M Graphics - 8 Cores
RAM - 64 GB

un Render de 20 segundos me tomaba unas 4hs, ahora el mismo proyecto me 35hs !!!! una locura