Premiere Pro 25.x: HEVC 8K Decoding Fallback to CPU– Works in 24.x but Stalls in 25.x

[dsob]

After a clean Windows 11 install, all Premiere Pro 25.x versions (25.0, 25.1, 25.5 – tested extensively) exhibit a severe regression when working with 7680×7680 HEVC (H.265) MP4 files:

• Initial ~60 seconds: full NVDEC hardware decoding on my RTX 3080 Laptop GPU (Video Decode 50–80 % in Task Manager)
• After ~1 minute: silently falls back to CPU/software decoding → Video Decode drops to 0 %, CPU spikes to 100 %, rendering stalls at minutes-per-frame
• Issue occurs even with simple edits (only new audio added, no video effects) when exporting to ProRes 422 HQ or H.264/H.265
• Identical clips, identical project, identical drivers, identical hybrid GPU BIOS setting → 100 % smooth real-time playback and fast exports in Premiere Pro 24.x (24.6 tested)
• In 25.x the same project immediately triggers the fallback and becomes unusable

System Details:

• Windows 11 24H2 (clean install)
• Intel Core i7-11800H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU (16 GB)
• Latest NVIDIA Studio Driver (clean install)
• Intel UHD Graphics drivers up-to-date, BIOS set to Hybrid
• 64 GB RAM, media on NVMe SSD
• GPU Sniffer confirms full CUDA detection, 16 GB VRAM, no restrictions
• Renderer locked to CUDA (OpenCL also available in hybrid mode)

Reproduction Steps:

1. Import any 7680×7680 HEVC MP4
2. Create sequence matching source
3. Add new audio track (no video edits)
4. Export or render timeline → stalls after ~1 minute in every 25.x release
5. Open identical project in 24.x → exports in real-time

Proof that it is a 25.x regression:

• Downgraded to Premiere Pro 24.6 → issue completely disappears
• Upgraded back to 25.0 / 25.1 / 25.5 → issue instantly returns
• No amount of cache clearing, driver reinstalls, or hardware decoding toggles fixes it in any 25.x version

This is clearly a regression introduced with the 25.x branch (most likely tied to the decoder priority changes or stricter NVDEC limits added in 25.x) and still unfixed in the latest stable release (25.5).

Please escalate this to the engineering team.

[Fergus H]

@dsob Thanks very much for a superbly-written description of the issue you've observed! We're talking about it internally and will update this post when we have more information. 

I'm curious: is this a camera-generated MP4 file from something like a Insta360 Pro? Or another source? 

Regards,

Fergus

[dsob]

The original camera used was an Insta360 Pro2 but these files have been stitched to a single spherical video, edited in PP, exported as a .MOV, then re-encoded using handbrake (PP encodes to HEVC have not met my quality expectations but that's an irrelevant detail to this issue). Here is an example file (please let me know when you and any other team members have downloaded it so I can delete t.) for testing:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QckWQROKTcGIerOhvhIXGy2oozlIqTbJ/view?usp=sharing

[Fergus H]

Thanks for the additional detail and the sample file. I've downloaded it. 

Regards,

Fergus

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dsob - Can you post a screenshot of your folder structure where your files are located.  Have you tried Premiere Pro version 25.6?

[dsob]

Yes I started the project with V25.6.3.
Files are stored on local SSD, not network storage, where I saw a previous report of a similar issue.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dsob -   Can you let us know what your integrated GPU (iGPU) driver version is?  You can find this information in device manager > display > iGPU > driver tab 

Same for your Nvidia driver.

In Premiere HEVC 8bit 420 files are decoded by priority your iGPU (intel) then your dGPU (Nvidia).

The easiest way to identify which GPU is causing the issue is to go to Device Manager > Display Adapters and temporarily disable either the integrated GPU (iGPU) or discrete GPU (dGPU) one at a time. This can help isolate the problem, or uncheck Intel/Nvidia in your Preferences > Media one at a time restarting each time.

[dsob]

My current Intel driver is 31.0.101.1999
My current Nvidia driver is 32.0.15.9144

I updated both yesterday when attempting to fix this issue, so it failed with 2 older drivers as well.

I'm currently encoding with PP V24 and it's working. I spent several hours testing and trying to fix yesterday so need to encode right now and not experiment. However yesterday it did not work when it was just my dGPU being used and Intel GPU disabled. I did not try with just the Intel GPU.

Have you been able to replicate with the file I shared?

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dsob -  The latest Intel driver is 32.0.101.7082, which may explain why an older version like 24.x works on your system. I tested playback and export in 25.5, 25.6, and both correctly use the iGPU without falling back to software decoding.

Do you happen to have any third party plugins or panels installed?

Can you share a screen recording when you are able to?

[dsob]

I did update the driver and Intel driver support page is showing it up-to-date - see screenshot.
No third party plugins or panels installed.
I will try and find time to do a screen-recording tomorrow.
If you can't replicate, then it will be very hard for you to solve though... I appreciate the effort.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dsob - What support page are you using?  Here is the one I found, 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/213803/intel-core-i711800h-processor-24m-cache-...

[dsob]

I was using this: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html

The link you found looks correct for my CPU though. I'll install that driver and see if it resolves the issue tomorrow.

[dsob]

I installed the Intel driver that you linked to and restarted. Using 25.6.3 the issue still remains.
I made a screenrecording, where the encoding starts at 2 mins.
Excuse the poor screenrecording, it's a fresh install of Windows 11 and first time using OBS on this build.
https://youtu.be/Y3Yqym_PMB0

[RjL190365]

Next thing to try:

You might not have a sufficient amount of total installed system RAM for the video content you're trying to decode. You see, the integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics does not have its own discrete VRAM at all, but actually "steals" system RAM for itself. And when the anount of reserved system RAM gets depleted, the job falls back into software-only mode.

When the decoding resources for the Intel iGPU gets depleted, the decoding job then switches to the Nvidia mode (in your particular case) only for its own discrete VRAM to get fully depleted as well, thus forcing software-only decoding for the remainder of the playback job.

The only solution to this is simple: Add more RAM to your system (assuming that you can add to or replace the pre-installed DDR4 laptop RAM modules yourself).

The only reason why version 24 worked but 25 didn't work properly goes back to the system RAM usage: Adding more features and additional format support inevitably bloats the system RAM usage on newer versions. In other words, your laptop is ill-prepared for newer "must-have" features.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @dsob - I see you have 13 clips are they all the same codec, bit rate, and chroma sampling as the one you uploaded? 

Can you send your project to jamiec@adobe.com so we can take a look.