Announcement: Windows on ARM Native in After Effects Beta

[Catie Bass]

We are excited to announce the public beta release of Windows on ARM native support in After Effects 25.6 build 7! We expect After Effects to run on all Qualcomm Snapdragon X-based laptops and tablets.

We do have some known issues that differ from those in the emulated beta, and we will update as we resolve them:

• Lack of format support, mostly notably ProRes (supported as of 25.6 build 34), but also including ARRIRAW, SWF, GoPro CinePro, JPEG20000 in MXF, and WMV. These formats cannot be imported or exported.
• This means that the High Quality and High Quality with Alpha settings will default (with a helpful warning) to the uncompressed QuickTime codec.
• No import of MotionJPEG and MKV.
• No hardware accelerated playback & export of H.264 and HEVC in MP4. (Playback supported as of 25.6 build 66)
• Keylight and Mocha are not yet available (there is a warning about them being missing on launch).
• The Cinema 4D renderer and related C4D features (e.g. Cineware) are not yet available.
• Third-party plug-ins will not work with the native builds and must be updated for WinARM.
• We are in contact with many third-party developers and will be releasing an SDK update for WinARM.
• You are welcome to reach out to developers about updating their plug-ins! We will provide an update when the next SDK update is available.

Please let us know if you encounter a failure with import/export, unless it is one of the formats listed above.

You may receive an error stating "Advanced 3D is not supported by the currently installed version of the Qualcomm GPU driver. Please update the driver", please download and install the most recent Qualcomm Adreno GPU driver for Snapdragon X Platform here: https://softwarecenter.qualcomm.com/catalog/item/Windows_Graphics_Driver?osArch=ARM64&osType=Windows...

After downloading the driver, unzip and run the .msi installer. After the installation completes, run After Effects (Beta). If you receive a warning about the driver version, you will need to follow these steps to manually select the new driver.

1. Close After Effects (Beta).
2. Open the Device Manager in Windows.
3. Twirl Open "Display Adapters" to show the Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU.
4. Right-click the GPU and select "Update driver".
5. Click "Browse my computer for drivers".
6. Click "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer".
7. Select the driver with version "31.0.96.0 [3/4/2025]". It is most likely to be at the bottom of the list.
8. Select "Next" to activate the new driver.

Note: You may also be able to download the driver via your system’s updater application, for example, the DELL Command application.

Thank you for being a part of our beta community and for your continued support!

[Valentin Robert]

That's awesome.

Just want to say that this is version is working on Parallels for macOS and M1 and above chips (and is much faster than the previous release...of course)

[Catie Bass]

Hi all! Quick update from our end -- we now support H264 & HEVC Hardware Decoding on Qualcomm GPUs for Windows on ARM. This new functionality enables hardware decoding of H264 (4:2:0 8bit) and HEVC (4:2:0 8bit and 10bit) codecs in MP4 and MOV containers, ensuring smoother playback and editing workflows.

We also now provide support for ProRes on Windows ARM.

Both of these updates are available in After Effects beta 25.6 build 66 and later.

[Silicon Pixel Glassworks]

Great news. How are you doing on hardware encoding of H264?

[Catie Bass]

Apologies for the delay here -- H.264 hardware encoding is not currently prioritized on our short-term roadmap. Can you tell me a little bit more about your needs, so I can bring that back to our engineering team?

[Flashka700]

Hello!
How do I install the beta version of After Effects? I don't see the beta button at all in my Creative Cloud window.
Snapdragon(R) X 12-core X1E80100

[Valentin Robert]

Strange but after updating the Creative Cloud app, the "beta" tab for the apps has disappeared...

[Flashka700]

Ohh noo...(

[Catie Bass]

Thanks for letting me know -- I'll look into this. To be clear, this issue is occurring on your Creative Cloud Desktop application while using a WinARM machine, correct? (Asking because I can't replicate the problem on my Mac -- beta tab shows as expected.)

[Flashka700]

Yes
it is Win11 Pro Surface Pro 11 Snapdragon X1E80100

[Catie Bass]

Thanks! Can you tell me which version of Creative Cloud Desktop you're using? You can find this in your top menu by going to "☰ -> Help -> About Creative Cloud"

It's working for us in Creative Cloud Desktop version 6.8.0.821 on our WinARM machines; if you're on a version newer than that, though, I'll let our Creative Cloud Desktop colleagues know.

[Catie Bass]

Another one of our engineers has just let me know this has happened to him often -- he says to try quitting and restarting your Creative Cloud Desktop app, as that frequently solves the problem for him.

[Flashka700]

Thanks! There's still no Beta button, but there is Photoshop Beta.

[Flashka700]

I don't know what happened, but the buttons appeared. I don't know if it happened on its own or if you did something, but thanks anyway!