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Quick Answer

Hardware acceleration offloads graphics processing to your GPU to improve performance. Turn it off in your browser or app settings if you experience screen flickering, black boxes in video calls, or display glitches — especially with older GPUs or remote desktop connections.

Understanding Hardware Acceleration (And When to Turn it Off) ​

Estimated Time to Fix: 3 minutes

Applies to: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Zoom, Microsoft Teams
Article Type: Informational
Last Updated: 2026-07-20

Summary ​

If you submit an IT ticket because your screen is flashing black during a Zoom call, or a video won't play in Chrome, the technician will almost always tell you to "turn off hardware acceleration." But what does that mean? This article explains what hardware acceleration is, why it breaks, and exactly where to find the off switch in your favorite apps.

What is Hardware Acceleration? ​

Your computer has two main "brains."

  1. The CPU (Central Processing Unit): The general manager. It handles everything from opening Word documents to loading websites. It is good at multitasking.
  2. The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit): The specialist. It is extremely good at doing one thing: drawing pixels on a screen very fast (like playing videos or rendering 3D games).

Normally, an app like Google Chrome relies entirely on the general manager (CPU) to do everything. When Hardware Acceleration is turned on, Chrome takes heavy visual tasks (like playing a 4K YouTube video) and hands them off to the specialist (GPU). This makes the video play smoother and saves battery life.

Why Does It Cause Problems? ​

Hardware acceleration requires perfect communication between the app (Chrome/Zoom), the operating system (Windows), and the physical graphics card (GPU). If your computer has an outdated graphics driver, or if the GPU gets slightly confused by the specific video file you are playing, the hand-off fails.

When the hand-off fails, the app usually crashes, freezes, or displays a black box instead of the video. Turning off hardware acceleration forces the app to give the job back to the CPU. The CPU might work a little harder, but it won't crash.

Prerequisites ​

  • None required.

Instructions ​

1. In Google Chrome ​

  1. Click the three dots (⋮) in the top right corner and select Settings.
  2. Click System on the left sidebar.
  3. Toggle off the switch for Use graphics acceleration when available.
  4. Click the Relaunch button that appears to restart Chrome.

2. In Microsoft Edge ​

  1. Click the three dots (...) in the top right corner and select Settings.
  2. Click System and performance on the left sidebar.
  3. Toggle off the switch for Use graphics acceleration when available.
  4. Click Restart.

3. In Zoom ​

  1. Open the Zoom app on your computer.
  2. Click your profile picture in the top right corner and select Settings.
  3. Click the Video tab on the left.
  4. Click Advanced at the very bottom right.
  5. Uncheck the boxes for Use hardware acceleration for: (Video processing, sending, and receiving).
  6. Restart Zoom.

4. In Microsoft Teams (Classic and New) ​

  1. Open Teams.
  2. Click the three dots (...) next to your profile picture at the top right and select Settings.
  3. Under the General tab, scroll down to the "System" section.
  4. Check the box for Disable GPU hardware acceleration.
  5. Completely close and reopen Teams.

Troubleshooting ​

WARNING

If turning off hardware acceleration fixes your crashes, it means your graphics card drivers are likely outdated or corrupted. You should eventually update your graphics drivers rather than leaving hardware acceleration off forever, as leaving it off consumes more battery on laptops.