New in beta: Software rendering option removed

[Fergus H]

In the latest beta of Premiere Pro and Media Encoder, the option to choose software rendering - “Mercury Playback Engine Software Only” - has been removed. Software rendering can cause poor performance and rendering in 8-bit, which can result in banding. In this beta and future released versions of our products, all rendering will be done using the GPU. 

This change affects: 

• Premiere Pro - Macintosh Intel
• Premiere Pro - Windows
• Media Encoder - all platforms

Note that this change has no effect on Premiere Pro on Apple silicon computers, as software rendering has never been an option on this platform. 

What renderer is being used by Premiere Pro is a project-specific setting. If a project using Mercury Playback Engine Software Only is opened in the latest beta of Premiere Pro, the renderer will automatically switch to a GPU-powered renderer. 

We would appreciate your feedback on this change. 

Regards,

Fergus

[Jarle Leirpoll]

If Nvidia can provide stable drivers, this is great! If not, it's not so great. 
This means we need a place to go to read about recommended driver versions.

[Ann Bens]

Does Adobe test drivers (and there are many) before they go public?

(what happened to your screenname).

[Jarle Leirpoll]

I have no idea what happened to my name 🤣🤣🤣

I think I've fixed it now 

[mattchristensen]

Yes, we partner with GPU vendors to ensure new drivers are tested with our applications before release.

[MisterAdvent]

Went to the export dialog and "Software Rendering" is still available. (25.2 build 73)

[Ann Bens]

I believe its the Project settings > General

This is AME

Tooltip needs to be adjusted.

[mattchristensen]

This change is specifically referring to the GPU Rendering option found in Project settings. The renderer there refers to the compositing and creation of the final frame you see in the program monitor (and that's used to encode in an export).

Hardware encoding in the export setting refers to using dedicated GPU hardware to take that final frame and encode it to a certain format. That is not changing.

[Mike McCarthy]

I can see a number of potential issues with this.   Software Only is a good fallback option for troubleshooting or avoiding render errors.  It either helps narrow down the issue to the GPU, or allows you to render anyway if necessary.

For example I just reviewed a new laptop that only exported R3D files in Software Only mode, and it appears that was due to the 4GB of RAM in the RTX1000Ada GPU.  (6GB in the RTX3000 did not have that issue.)  I was actually impressed with the performance of Software Only on that system, as long as GPU FX weren't used in the sequence.

I was involved in a project a few years ago that was entirely edited in Software Only mode, because the "Offset" effect gave different (incorrect) results GPU mode, but worked perfectly in Software Only mode, even outputting a 6K wide image in RT.  I just tested, and that particular bug appears to be fixed, but I have encountered many other issues that I have used the software renderer to avoid over the years.

I have another friend who just downgraded back to 2023 because best we can figure, his GTX1080 was not supporting hardware accelerated export on in 2025.  So this change could be an issue for a lot of laptop users, or others with older hardware.  But if a brand new top end system couldn't GPU render two months ago, you guys need to fix that, before you remove the software renderer, which is how people in those situations currently continue to function.  Similar problems if a bad driver gets released, as mentioned in Jarle's post, there is no fallback option, when (not if) that does happen.

Making the software rendered harder to activate (especially accidently) might be a better place to start, and see how much user uproar that generates.  Maybe a default checked preference labeled "Disable Software Renderer" which greys out the existing UI, and generates an error when no supported GPU and drivers is found. (But when uncheck, gives the users the options they have now.)

[Fergus H]

Hi Mike, 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! We've also been considering some of the options you mentioned, regarding keeping software rendering as an option but making it harder to choose and not sticky (i.e., changing it for one project doesn't make it the default for new projects). However, given the small number of known bugs we have related to software rendering and the large number of customer who we think are accidentally using software rendering (which will often cause a ~10x performance hit), we think a more active approach may be preferable. It’s definitely why this change is in beta and while it will stay in beta until we’re confident it’s a good change. Of course, we’re hoping that putting the change in beta will help expose bugs that we don’t yet know about and, ultimately, if we’re not confident that this change is a good one, we’ll take a different approach.

I'll send you an email to set up some time to discuss this on the phone. It's not entirely clear to me if the example you mentioned are only regarding rendering or if they also include encoding. Let's chat!

Thanks again, 

Fergus

[Shebbe]

Thanks for the focus on depricating 'old tech'. I do share similar sentiment as @Mike McCarthy though that Software/CPU can be a good fallback if GPU rendering / memory issues arise. That said, the CPU limitations of certain processing being 8bit is highly undesireable.

Is there a possibility in the future that we still get a CPU fall back option, maybe even internally as a background process for when GPU fails to render/compute certain frames? But an upgraded one that always processes in 32bit float.

On a similar note, it could be practical to also depricate Trilinear LUT interpolation? Would anyone ever needs this interpolation method? It's also there as fallback when CPU rendering is used?

I struggled with this a lot in AE when it would auto switch to CPU when GPU had errors or couldn't render the frame anymore but it would be sticky when switching back to mercury GPU.

[dj25868496ydf0]

Hi Fergus and everyone at Adobe,

Thank you very much for your ongoing work on Premiere Pro and for sharing this beta update.

I am a Mac user who relies on “Software Only” rendering to avoid a specific issue with hardware encoding. I have already contacted Adobe Japan and Apple, but unfortunately, the problem remains unresolved. Switching from hardware encoding to software encoding is currently the only reliable workaround that allows me to continue delivering my projects without issues.

If “Software Only” is permanently removed, I’m concerned that I will no longer be able to complete or deliver my work. It would be extremely helpful if you could keep an option—however hidden or advanced—to allow software rendering, at least until the hardware-related issue is fully resolved. I’m also happy to provide additional details about my system or the specific phenomenon, if needed.

Thank you for considering my request.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dj25868496ydf0 - can you make a post about your specific issue in the premiere bugs forum and tag me. I would be happy to investigate with you.

[dj25868496ydf0]

Thanks for reaching out! I'd appreciate your help. However, I'd prefer to discuss the details via email if possible. Could you let me know how we can proceed with that? @jamieclarke 

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dj25868496ydf0 - No Problem, send me an email jamiec@adobe.com 

[MyerPj]

Though I rarely if ever have recommended 'Software Only' as a solution to issues that come up on the forum, I do see that suggested as a work around reasonably frequently. I've never used SO since "cuda_supported_cards.txt" was a thing. And I really appreciated at the time, that Adobe said I believe ahead of time, that they were going to use 'cuda'. So, great, never had a problem. But some users seem to, and some are even thrilled that switching to software only fixed their issue. 🙂

[Ann Bens]

If Software Only solves the issue, I am inclined to think something is wrong with their graphics card.

[MyerPj]

Indeed, but it gives them a way out, even though it's very much non-optimal.

[Fergus H]

Hi all, 

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback on this change! It's been a great discussion with you all and has inspired much brainstorming for us!

In the next beta of Premiere Pro, we are adding an option to switch to using software rendering via a launch option. Holding down the shift key, then launching Premiere Pro will present the dialog box below. Choosing "Use Software Rendering only" will, for that session of Premiere Pro, only use software rendering - no GPU rendering option will be available. 

In the current released version of Premiere Pro, we think that it’s common for customers to accidentally have software rendering set as a default for new projects, causing performance issues and banding. We think that the change we are adding to the beta is a middle ground between entirely removing software rendering as a customer choice and making it an easy-to-access choice that too often becomes the default.

Again, we’d love your feedback.

Regards,

Fergus

 

[Shebbe]

I think that is a great solution. Thanks.

[Jarle Leirpoll]

Great solution! 👌

[Jarle Leirpoll]

FYI: Today I used a MOGRT that simply didn't work in the beta (build 91) by default settings. No pixels from the MOGRT showed. Switching to Software Rendering via the new option at start, the MOGRT works as expected. It also works as expected in the release version, even with GPU rendering. 

This shows how important it still is to have this option, as GPU rendering can't always be trusted.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Jarle Leirpoll - can you send me the project with the mogrt to jamiec@adobe.com , so we can see what's going on. 

[Jarle Leirpoll]

Sure thing!

[MyerPj]

I'm glad it will still be around, and that solution makes it clear one should work on the problem. 🙂