To turn hardware acceleration on or off in Windows 10, select Start > Settings > System > Display, then select Graphics settings. Turn Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling on or off, and restart your PC. Many apps, like web browsers, also have their own hardware acceleration setting.

Applies to: Windows 10, version 2004 and later. Microsoft doesn’t have a support page for this setting, so these steps follow Windows 10 Settings. Windows 10 reached end of support on October 14, 2025, and only PCs enrolled in Extended Security Updates still get security fixes, through October 12, 2027.

Contents hide

1 What hardware acceleration means

2 Turn GPU scheduling on or off in Settings

3 Turn it on or off in an app

4 Should it be on or off?

5 If something goes wrong

6 Frequently asked questions

What hardware acceleration means

Hardware acceleration lets an app hand graphics work, like drawing pages or playing video, to your graphics card instead of the main processor. That usually makes things smoother and saves battery.

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is a separate Windows setting. It lets the graphics card manage its own memory and work queue, which can cut a little delay in games. Most people won’t notice a difference either way.

Turn GPU scheduling on or off in Settings

Select Start > Settings > System > Display.
Scroll down and select Graphics settings.

Windows 10 Settings Display page with the Graphics settings link highlighted — On the Display page (1), select Graphics settings (2).

Turn Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling on or off.
Restart your PC. The change doesn’t take effect until you do.

Windows 10 Graphics settings page with the Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling switch highlighted — Turn Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling on or off (1).

Don’t see the switch? It needs Windows 10 version 2004 or later, a graphics card that supports it, and an up-to-date graphics driver. First check your graphics driver version, then update the graphics driver in Windows 10 if it is old.

Turn it on or off in an app

Many apps use your graphics card on their own. The setting is in each app:

Microsoft Edge: Go to Settings > System and performance and turn Use graphics acceleration when available on or off. Then select Restart.
Google Chrome: Go to Settings > System and turn Use graphics acceleration when available on or off. Then select Relaunch.
Firefox: Go to Settings > General > Performance, clear Use recommended performance settings, then check or clear Use hardware acceleration when available, and restart Firefox.
Discord: Go to User Settings > Advanced and turn Hardware Acceleration on or off.
PowerPoint: Select File > Options > Advanced. Under Display, check or clear Disable Slide Show hardware graphics acceleration.
Other apps: Look in the app’s settings for hardware acceleration or GPU.

Older guides point to a Troubleshoot tab in the display adapter properties, or a DisableHWAcceleration registry value. On current Windows 10 PCs that tab is usually grayed out or missing because the graphics driver controls it, and the registry value only affects apps built with Microsoft’s WPF framework. Neither is a system-wide off switch, so use the GPU scheduling setting and each app’s own option instead.

Should it be on or off?

Leave it on unless something goes wrong. Try turning it off if you see:

Flickering, black boxes, or a blank window
Videos that stutter or show green blocks
An app that crashes or freezes when it opens

If turning it off fixes the problem, update your graphics driver and try turning it back on later.

If something goes wrong

You don’t see Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. Your graphics card and its driver both have to support it. Update the graphics driver from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel. Older cards and some built-in graphics don’t offer it at all.
The screen goes black or freezes after a change. Press Windows logo key + Ctrl + Shift + B. This restarts the graphics driver, and the screen should come back after a beep. If it doesn’t, restart the PC.
A browser crashes before you can reach its settings. Start it with acceleration turned off. Right-click its shortcut, select Properties, and add –disable-gpu to the end of the Target box, after a space. Change the setting, then remove the extra text.
Games got slower after you turned on GPU scheduling. Turn it off again and restart. Results depend on the game and the graphics card.

Frequently asked questions

Does hardware acceleration make games faster?

GPU scheduling may help a little on some PCs and make no difference on others. For smoother motion, also check your screen’s refresh rate.

What graphics card do I have?

Device Manager and a few other tools show it, as explained in checking your graphics card in Windows 10.

Can I choose which graphics card an app uses?

Yes, on laptops with two graphics chips. In Graphics settings, add the app, select Options, and choose Power saving or High performance.

Will turning off hardware acceleration hurt my PC?

No. Apps just use the processor for drawing instead. They may feel slower, and videos may use more battery.

The PowerPoint setting is described on PowerPoint Options (Advanced).

Matt Jacobs

Matt Jacobs writes and maintains the guides on Support Your Tech, which he started in 2017. He spent most of his career keeping small-business PCs running and still takes the occasional consulting job, so the steps here come from fixing the same problems on other people’s computers. Every guide is checked on his own Windows 11, Windows 10, Mac, iPhone and iPad before it goes up.