Why is Adobe Premiere Pro So Slow and How to Make it Faster

Adobe Premiere Pro is an industry-leading video editing application packed with powerful features. But all that capability comes at the cost of high demand on your computer‘s hardware. If you‘ve been frustrated by sluggish performance, you‘re not alone. However, there are multiple ways to optimize Premiere Pro and your system to get things running smoothly again.

In this guide, we‘ll break down the key reasons why Premiere Pro can bog down and share proven solutions to make it faster. Whether you‘re a professional video editor or just starting out, these tips will help you get the most responsive experience in Premiere Pro. Let‘s dive in!

Why Premiere Pro Can Run Slowly

Before we look at how to speed up Premiere Pro, it‘s important to understand some of the underlying causes of slow performance. Video editing is one of the most hardware-intensive tasks you can throw at a computer. Large, high-resolution video files, complex timelines with multiple tracks and effects, and the mathematics involved in rendering and exporting all place a heavy load on the CPU, memory, storage, and graphics card.

Demanding Hardware Requirements

With each new release, Adobe expands Premiere Pro‘s capabilities, but that additional functionality needs more computing horsepower to run optimally. If you haven‘t upgraded your hardware in a while, a new version of the software may expose the limitations of an aging machine.

According to Adobe‘s recommended system specs, Premiere Pro runs best with a multi-core CPU, at least 16GB of RAM (32GB for 4K and up), and a dedicated GPU with 4GB or more of VRAM. A fast SSD for the cache and a separate media drive are also advisable. Trying to run the latest version on a system that falls short of these recommendations is a recipe for lag.

Complex Projects Push Performance

It‘s not just about your hardware either. The nature and complexity of your Premiere Pro projects have a huge impact on performance. Timelines with a large number of tracks, heavy use of effects like color correction and blur, and high-resolution source footage (4K and up) all increase the processing load.

Premiere Pro has to juggle the huge amount of data involved, both in RAM and virtual memory. So the resolution and codec of your media files, as well as the number of clips on the timeline, directly correlate with the demands on the system.

Outdated or Underpowered Hardware

An obsolete or underpowered CPU and graphics card are the most common bottlenecks for Premiere Pro speed. Older processors with slower clock speeds and fewer cores will struggle with the calculations needed for video editing and rendering.

Insufficient RAM is another frequent culprit, as Premiere Pro relies heavily on plentiful, fast memory. When you don‘t have enough RAM for the task at hand, the system has to rely more on the much slower virtual memory, bogging everything down.

An inadequate graphics card, or trying to use integrated graphics rather than a dedicated GPU, will also hamper performance in Premiere Pro, especially for 4K and higher projects and graphics-accelerated effects.

Clutter Slows the System

Over time, the buildup of old files associated with your Premiere Pro projects can start to become a drag on performance. While not as significant as the other factors we‘ve discussed, a cluttered project, bloated media cache, and obsolete preview files do contribute to slowdowns and wasted disk space.

GPU Acceleration Disabled

By default, GPU acceleration should be enabled in Premiere Pro, allowing it to tap into the power of your graphics card to speed up certain effects and processes. However, if this setting has been changed, you won‘t be getting the full performance potential of your system.

Hardware Upgrades to Boost Speed

The single most effective way to improve Premiere Pro‘s speed is to upgrade your hardware. With more computing resources at its disposal, the software will be able to churn through demanding tasks much faster. Let‘s look at the key components that impact Premiere Pro performance.

CPU

The central processing unit is the brain of your computer, and for video editing, it needs to be a real powerhouse. Premiere Pro benefits greatly from a CPU with a high core count, as it‘s able to distribute different tasks to the various cores for processing in parallel.

Intel‘s Core i7 and i9 and AMD‘s Ryzen 7 and 9 are excellent choices, with their high clock speeds and generous core counts. Video editing is one of the few areas where splurging for a flagship CPU is well worth it.

RAM

Having plenty of fast RAM is crucial for smooth video editing in Premiere Pro. 16GB should be considered a starting point, with 32GB being ideal for 4K work and up. Premiere Pro can gobble memory fast, so it‘s one area you don‘t want to skimp.

When shopping for RAM, pay attention to the speed as well as the capacity. Faster memory allows Premiere Pro to retrieve assets stored in RAM more quickly. DDR4 speeds of 3200MHz and up are a good target.

GPU

The graphics processing unit has taken on an increasingly important role in Premiere Pro in recent versions. Many common effects like color correction, blurs, and sharpening can be GPU accelerated, and the graphics card also helps with fast playback of high-resolution timelines.

For best results, choose a dedicated GPU from Nvidia‘s RTX line or AMD‘s Radeon RX series with at least 4GB of VRAM (8GB is better for 4K/8K). Keep in mind that the better the GPU you can afford, the more performance headroom you‘ll have for graphics-intensive operations.

Fast Storage

The speed of your storage has a major influence on Premiere Pro‘s responsiveness. An SSD is a must for the boot drive, application, and media cache/scratch disk. Premiere Pro does a lot of read/write operations during an editing session, and the faster data can be moved on and off the drive, the snappier it will feel.

Ideally, you also want a dedicated SSD for your project files and source media. This keeps the I/O load of the OS and software separate from the large, sustained reads needed for video files.

Optimize Premiere Pro Settings

If a full hardware overhaul isn‘t in the cards right now, there are still tangible improvements you can make by fine-tuning your Premiere Pro project settings.

Use Proxies for Smoother Editing

Proxies are lower resolution copies of your source clips that Premiere Pro can generate and use for previewing and editing. Since they‘re much smaller files, proxies place far less strain on the system, allowing you to build your edit smoothly while still retaining the full quality of the originals for export.

To create proxies, right click your clips in the Project window, go to Proxy > Create Proxies. Choose a low resolution like 1280×720 or even 640×360 for the proxy preset. Then toggle proxies on and off with the button in the Program Monitor.

Lower Playback Resolution

Another way to improve playback performance is to tell Premiere Pro to display the preview at a lower resolution. This reduces the processing load, as Premiere Pro doesn‘t have to render as many pixels for each frame.

You can adjust the playback resolution by clicking on the dropdown menu in the Program Monitor and choosing 1/2 or 1/4. The reduced preview size won‘t affect your export quality, but it will let you play back a complex timeline more smoothly on a lower-spec machine.

Disable Idle Tracks

If your sequence has a lot of tracks, you can conserve processing power by disabling the ones you‘re not currently using. This is especially helpful if you have tracks with CPU-hungry effects that are bogging things down.

Simply click the eye icon next to the track name to toggle it on or off. Disabled tracks won‘t be factored into the playback and render pipeline, lightening Premiere Pro‘s load.

Manage Media Cache and Previews

Premiere Pro‘s media cache and preview files can speed up performance by storing frequently accessed data in a form that‘s faster to load. But over time, they can also start to clutter up your drives with unneeded data from old projects. A bit of regular housekeeping can help keep things tidy and running efficiently.

Clean Up Media Cache

Premiere Pro‘s media cache contains snippets of imported media files, making it faster to preview footage without having to re-read the originals from disk each time. However, this cache can grow quite large over time and may contain obsolete data from deleted media.

To clear it out, go to Preferences > Media Cache. Here you can see the current location and size of the cache, as well as change the location if needed. Click Delete to clear out the existing cache files and start fresh. It‘s a good idea to do this every so often, especially after finishing a project.

Delete Old Preview Files

Similarly, Premiere Pro generates preview files in the background to enable smooth playback of sequences with effects and color correction. These preview files are saved alongside your project file, but they can linger after the project is complete.

To delete old preview files, browse to your project folder and delete the files that end with ".pek" and ".ims". Don‘t delete these from an active project though, or you‘ll lose your preview renders.

Enable GPU Acceleration

GPU acceleration taps into the power of your graphics card to speed up playback and rendering of effects like color correction, blurs, and scaling. It‘s enabled by default in most cases, but it‘s worth double-checking that it‘s on.

Go to File > Project Settings > General and look under the Video Rendering and Playback section. The Renderer should be set to "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration". If it‘s not, change it and restart Premiere Pro.

Keep Software Up to Date

Adobe is constantly refining Premiere Pro‘s performance and squashing bugs that could impact speed. By keeping your copy of Premiere Pro up to date, you‘ll ensure that you‘re benefitting from the latest optimizations. The same goes for your graphics card drivers, which are frequently updated with performance enhancements for creative apps like Premiere Pro.

To check for Premiere Pro updates, go to Help > Updates. For GPU drivers, visit the support pages for Nvidia or AMD, depending on your card, and download the latest version.

Render Previews for Intensive Sections

If you have a particularly effects-heavy section of your edit that‘s causing playback to stutter, you can force Premiere Pro to render previews for just that part. This will generate preview files for the selected clips, allowing smoother playback.

To do this, set In and Out points around the section you want to render, then go to Sequence > Render Effects In to Out. Premiere Pro will generate preview files you can playback in real time, and will only re-render them if you make further changes to the effects.

Conclusion

Premiere Pro‘s performance is a product of the complexity of your projects and the robustness of your hardware, with a variety of factors in between. By understanding the demands that video editing places on a system and taking steps to lighten the load, you can dramatically improve Premiere Pro‘s speed and responsiveness.

The best long-term solution is to invest in a powerful computer tailored to video editing, with a fast CPU, ample RAM, a capable GPU, and speedy storage. But even if an upgrade isn‘t feasible immediately, thoughtful management of your project settings, media cache, and preview files can still yield noticeable gains.

By implementing these strategies and keeping Premiere Pro and your drivers updated, you‘ll spend less time waiting and more time creating. Here‘s to your next editing session being a smooth and speedy one!