Adobe · After Effects on Windows & macOS
Fix ‘Display Acceleration Disabled’ in After Effects
Source-checked About 3 minutes
Answer
Open After Effects preferences, select Appearance, and enable Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels. If the option is unavailable, update After Effects and the graphics driver, then restart the computer.
Protect the project and record the Adobe configuration
Save a separate project copy and record the application version, operating system, GPU and driver, plug-ins, selected project and exact warning before changing acceleration or preferences. Test one setting with the same small project or composition so results are comparable. Use Adobe's supported requirements and diagnostics, and avoid cracked plug-ins, generic driver packages or deleting the only preferences and project copy.
Open Preferences
In After Effects, open Preferences on Windows or Settings on macOS.
Select Appearance
Choose Appearance in the preferences list.
Enable panel acceleration
Turn on Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels, confirm the change, and restart After Effects.
Compare the renderer with the project requirements
Open Project Settings and confirm the available renderer for this composition. A renderer can be unavailable because the GPU, driver, effect or project configuration does not meet Adobe's current requirements; do not force a menu option that the compatibility check disables.
Verify panel acceleration
Reopen the saved test project, scrub the same composition in the Composition, Layer, and Footage panels, and confirm the warning is gone. If the option remains disabled, record the After Effects build, GPU, driver, renderer, and effect that blocks it for Adobe Support.
Video walkthrough
If it does not work
- If acceleration remains unavailable, preserve Adobe's compatibility result, GPU model, driver, renderer and any effect named in the warning. Test a new project and a supported driver before resetting preferences; restore a stable software renderer rather than forcing unsupported GPU acceleration.
Sources and verification
Checked against official documentation on . Scope: After Effects 26.x on Windows and macOS.
Adobe now places panel hardware acceleration under Appearance; older Display-preferences screenshots were removed.