Premiere Pro 2025 Playback Lag

[AlanCB]

I have been dealing with this issue all day and have yet to find a solution. 

Anytime I try to play video (either in the preview window or the timeline) it stutters no matter what file format that I'm using.  So far I've tried clearing my cache, reinstalling and updating the drivers for my GPU, deleting all my prefernces in premiere, changing the playback quality, changing the video preview codec in the sequence settings, and making sure that I had the render and playbacy set to GPU acceleration in the project settings. None of this has worked. I just updated to the latest version today (03/17/2025) and that's when the issues started. I can go back to an older version if need be but I'm hoping that someone here has been experiencing similar problems.

My System Specs

Windows 11 64 Bit

Processor: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900KF 3.00 GHz

RAM: 32GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (with the Game Ready Driver installed)

Storage: 800GB with 130GB free

Any help is appreciated.

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from using the community bugs">

[Hiddenpictures Ltd]

Don't keep moving stuff around - just leave it where it is - frequently can't find stuff you move elsewhere

[Peru Bob]

Do a clean installation of the latest Studio Driver (NOT the Game Driver).

[AlanCB]

I just finished the clean install and still having the same problem. 

[Peru Bob]

Storage: 800GB with 130GB free

By @AlanCB

SSD or HDD?

[AlanCB]

SSD

[Peru Bob]

Have you tried proxies?

https://www.adobe.com/learn/premiere-pro/web/proxy-media?locale=en&learnIn=1

[AlanCB]

I've tried Prores 422 proxies, AVI uncompressed, H264, and MXF files. All of these files play fine outside of premiere using vlc. Also, I'm working with 1080p 30fps video, nothing crazy like 4k. 

[ThioJoe]

Does the playhead in the timeline lag as well? Maybe try disabling G-Sync in the Nvidia control panel, or setting it to only Enable for Full Screen mode. I had an issue that was causing for me and changing that fixed it.

[AlanCB · Accepted solution]

Problem fixed. It was because of my headphones. The headphone jack on my computer is a heaphone/mic jack. Unplugged my headphones and it started working fine no problems. Plugged them back in and the problem came back. I don't think lagging best discribed my problem. What was happening was the playhead would play forward then bounce a couple of frames back then continue forward again throughout the entirety of the video. This happened in both the timeline and source monitor. Now I've got my headphones plugged into my monitor and it's working fine. Does anyone know why this would be causing the problem?

[ThioJoe · Accepted solution]

Hm odd. Well there's apparently an issue where the the playhead lag is caused by audio input devices/settings, like mentioned here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/p-premiere-25-playhead-laggy-with-timeline-d...

I assume it's the same thing. Maybe try setting default input audio device to No Input.

[AlanCB]

This fixed it. Thanks for your help.

[FOediting]

I can confirm that I’m also experiencing serious playback issues in Premiere Pro v25.3.

Made a post here: 
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-bugs/lag-new-premiere-pro-25-3-severe-lag-during-playbac...

Playback runs smoothly for about 4 seconds, then starts to stutter heavily, even at 1/4 resolution. Timeline scrubbing is also noticeably laggy and unresponsive.

I’ve tested the exact same project, footage, and timeline settings in Premiere Pro 22.2, and everything runs perfectly. No lag, no stuttering. I’ve used version 22.2 for a long time without any problems, including with 4K Canon R5 footage and high-bitrate media.

This clearly feels like a performance regression introduced in 25.3. I’ll probably revert to 22.2 for now, but I’m very curious if more users are experiencing the same problem.

[Branden Murphy]

did you ever get it working well?

[AlanCB]

Yes, my problem was with the headphone/mic jack of my computer.

[Parallel_Productions]

thanks Alan, that didnt fix it for me :*(

[JohnDeeFL]

I have Premiere Pro 25.0.0 Build 61 and it was working 100% smooth for over a year and few days ago and even today, i tried to compile a short for youtube in 4K like i always did and the palyback and search is choppy at random but audio is fine. I have all drivers upto date including windows 11.

Nvidia studio is updated, HP drivers updated, media cache folder emptied (all cache folders emptied in Adobe\Common), Settings were never altered in Premiere, always ran perfect until recently!

Now i'm very annoyed because i've learned how to use this software and it became unusable!

This somehow leads me to believe that there is some sort of Windows 11 update issue or i don't know what can cause it. I've tried ALL that google said to do. VLC and windows media player plays the videos smootly but not Premiere!

[JohnDeeFL]

I tested 2 video clips and strangely, one of them is playing fine but not the other.

Here are two codec info photos of those clips, both are pretty much the same so i don't get it why Premeire has issues. Just to clarify, the one that plays fine was recorded on OnePlus 10 Pro and the one that is laggy was recorded on OnePlus 13.

[JohnDeeFL]

Can't edit posts so i have to add; I did few conversions of clips from the same camera (OnePlus 13, OxygenOS 15) and seems to me that OnePlus 13 is using a weird H265 codec that Premiere Pro has issues decoding. Once i took that clip and ran it through HandBrake set to 4K H265 with contant frame rate, the clip is obviously smaller in size and slight quality but it plays fine in Premiere.

Yes, i did switch from OnePlus 10 Pro 2 weeks ago and for me, it has to be OnePlus 13 H265 video encoding issue. Weather it's in HDR or not, same lagging playback and export in Premiere.