This guide will help you disable Hardware Acceleration in Chrome. Hardware Acceleration can be responsible for a variety of issues – including mouse lag. video and audio stutter and more.
Google Chrome is a decent browser. However, it has its own issues that sometimes may prevent us from using it at its best. A recent problem that some users have been reporting is related to some mouse lagging and some sluggish performance whenever they try to click on a link or copy a text. Such a problem may not be a big deal, but surely can be frustrating to the point that you may prefer to switch to some other browser, just to get rid of the annoying lags. Luckily, if you are a keen Google Chrome user and you don’t want to give up on your default browser, there are some fixes you can try in order to eliminate this irritating issue.
There are some fixes available online, however, they may not really have significant effect on improving your Chrome browser performance. That’s why in this guide we will offer you to try something different. In the next lines, our team will share with you a solution that we found to be working and we hope that it will work for you, too.
From what we have tested, it appears that fixing the Chrome lagging problem can be tied to Hardware Acceleration, disabling Hardware Acceleration in Chrome can be a big boost to performance on some systems. After you follow the instructions below, your Google Chrome should be fast and responsive again and all the annoying mouse lagging and sluggish performance should be gone. So, give this solution a try and let us know if it works for you.
Hardware Acceleration and Windows 7/10
Hardware acceleration allows your Windows 7 or Windows 10 OS to make a better use out of your graphics card in order to perform better and provide the user with more advanced graphical features. When it comes to your Chrome browser, during the time hardware acceleration is enabled, it would enable better video playback performance and will improve your experience within online applications such as google maps. This works the same Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10. However, sometimes, this feature seems to be causing more harm than good, especially on systems that are not very powerful. It is no secret that Chrome is one of the most demanding browsers using considerable portions of the PC’s RAM. Therefore, having a feature that further increases the system resource consumption might sometimes be a little too much. Therefore, if you want to have the hardware acceleration disabled, use the following guide – it works the same for Windows 7,8 (8.1) and Windows 10.
How to Disable Hardware Acceleration in Chrome
The Guide
Usually, the reasons for your problems with the Google Chrome’s performance can be many. That’s why there is not a universal fix for this and even the solution that we are offering here may not work for everyone. However, giving it a try will surely do no harm to your browser and you will only benefit if it works. Some users are reporting that the latency issues and mouse lags that they have been having were successfully solved when they turned the hardware acceleration off, so if you are experiencing some similar problems, it may be worth reading. Here is what you need to do:
Step 1: Open your Google Chrome browser.
Step 2: Next, seek for the icon with the three horizontal lines at the top-right of the window as shown in the picture. When you hover over it, it should say “Customize and control Google Chrome”. Click on that icon to open the menu.
Step 3: Find the Settings option at the bottom of the menu and click on it.
Step 4: In the Settings menu, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Show advanced settings” link.
Step 5: Scroll down to the end of the page that appears and there you should find a box stating “Use hardware acceleration when available”
Step 6: Remove the checkmark from the box beside it. This will turn off the hardware acceleration.
Step 7: To make the changes take effect, you need to close Chrome and restart it.
This fix should solve the issues with the lags in your favorite browser. However, if you are still experiencing some problems, it is best to contact Google Chrome’s support site for additional assistance.