Enabling CUDA for Adobe Premiere Pro

I’m pissed at Adobe, and I feel like a chump.

For several years I’ve been using Premiere Pro (CS4/CS6) without harnessing the CUDA capability of my graphics card (192 CUDA cores, to be precise).

How could this possibly happen?

Well, Adobe’s software will only “look” for the cards that are listed in a text file called “cuda_supported_cards.txt.”  This text file is by NO MEANS comprehensive.  In fact, it lists VERY FEW cards.

There is a program in the Premiere Pro system directory (C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6) called GPUSniffer.exe.  If you run this program from the command line, it will show you the exact name of your installed video card(s).  When you add this card (be sure to use the exact name listed by GPU Sniffer) to the “cuda_supported_cards.txt” file, only then will Premiere harness the CUDA power of your graphics card.

Once you have added the name of your device to the approved list that Premiere Pro uses to verify the card, the “GPU accelration” option will be available under the General tab of your Project Settings.

Specific instructions:

1. Type CMD into your Start Menu search field (at the very bottom of your Start Menu).
2. Right click the cmd.exe program in the list and select “run as administrator.”
3. Navigate to the appropriate directory (C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6) first by typing “cd\” to get to the root (c:) and then “cd Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6” to get to the Premiere Pro directory.
4. Type “GPUSniffer.exe” and take note of the card listed in the information returned.
5. Open Notepoad with admin privileges (right click on the Notepad program icon and select “run as admin”), then navigate to the same directory (C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6) and open the “cuda_supported_cards.txt” file.
6. Add the name of your card to the list (it must be EXACTLY as it was listed in the GUP Sniffer dialog), and save the file.
7. Next time you open Adobe Premiere Pro, GPU Acceleration will be available from the drop down in your project’s “General” tab of settings.

UPDATE: You may also need to do a regedit fix documented here: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1061522?tstart=120

• Go to Regedit
• Find this key by selecting Edit and then Find at the top:- " 0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583 "
• Within this key, there is a value called: "ValueMax"
• This value represents the % number of cores the system will park - the default is 100% (ie: all Cores are potentially park-able)
• Change the value from 64 to 0 so the "ValueMin" and "ValueMax" are both zero
• You will have to find the key a few times and repeat the process for each time it is found - the number of instances will depend on the number of power profiles in your system

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