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">

[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.