Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration Grayed Out

[MoneyMan1951]

I had upgraded from an Intel Mid-2014 i7 to a 2023 Apple M3 Max 16 Core and 40 Core GPU. The transition was smooth as transferring to my new Macbook Pro. All was running well until I had to render a project using some fancy transitions. I received a message saying "Error compiling movie. Accelerated Renderer Error. Unble to produce frame" which had me wondering what was happening. I checked my settings when it came to rendering and I see where the Mercury rendering GPU was greyed out . This is disappointing. I'm currently running MacOS Sequioa 15.2 and I have a couple of projects on hold because of this. I tried to out smart the situation by importing the Premiere Pro project inside of After Effects. It started rendering at a snails pace, moving uphill and it failed to render the project which was only 1 minute.

[MyerPj]

Maybe that's the only option available to you? Adobe is going to remove the software only setting.

Info needed for a bug report

[RjL190365 · Accepted solution]

If you're exporting from within Premiere Pro, then you're permanently locked to the Metal GPU-accelerated rendering mode with all apple Silicon Macs. The default rendering mode will be shown within the grayed-out selection box – in this case, Metal. You cannot select software-only rendering or any other API because Apple silicon Macs do not support them at all.

Software-only rendering on Mac is available only on (older) Intel-powered Macs.

[Hugo36391780k9m5]

I've found Premiere to be lagging more after this happened, any idea why? I have a 32gb mac and it was never an issue before the greyed out that area. 

[Charles38967273k665]

I am experiencing extreme slow down, using PC. This is really unacceptable to me. I deleted the cache, checked my nvidia card settings, nothing helps. Any ideas?

[R Neil Haugen]

I have no clue even what to suggest as you didn't post any data. 

Create a new post listing complete hardware specs of your computer, Pr version in XX.X.0 form, and the specific troubles you are having. 

Your peers are here to help you.

[Charles38967273k665]

I have Creative Cloud, all apps updated to latest version. In the Project settings, Mercury Playback Engine is grayed out.

[MarsRoberge]

I have had the same issues.  I'm running an older Mac on Monterey with the latest version of Premiere Pro and suddenly I can no longer export my 4k timeline in true 4k without the compiling movie error.  I spent several remote sessions with Adobe Support and get the run-around where they say to export the movie to FCP XML then import it into a 2024 version of the software.  However, when I do that, it doesn't replicate my timeline: many frames are off with the x,y axis and certai effects have been removed such as invert colors, etc.  If I want to export the movie, I'm going to waste another month of my time adjusting shot-by-shot.  WHY?!!  Adobe Support, please put back the software-only render fuctions or give us more options like before.  If it's not broken, why fix it?

[MyerPj]

Hey @MarsRoberge 

You can still do the render in 'software only' mode. Hold down shift as you start PP, then chose that options.

[MarsRoberge]

I will check that out.  Thank you @MyerPj