How to Disable Hardware Acceleration in Discord

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Turn off hardware acceleration to fix streaming & performance issues

Co-authored by Hannah Dillon Reviewed by Stan Kats

Last Updated: February 9, 2026 Fact Checked

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Disabling Hardware Acceleration

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Why turn it off?

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Discord's Hardware Acceleration setting is supposed to make the app run more smoothly, but sometimes it can cause issues. If your Discord is acting up, disabling Hardware Acceleration could fix those issues. In this article, we'll teach you how to disable Hardware Acceleration in Discord. We'll also go over some of the reasons people turn this setting off. Read on to learn more!

Quick Steps

Open Discord's settings.
Click Advanced in the left-hand sidebar.
Toggle off Hardware Acceleration.
Click Change & Restart to apply the change and restart your Discord client.

Section 1 of 2:

How to Turn Off Hardware Acceleration

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1
Open your Discord settings. To do this, click the gear button in the bottom-left part of the screen. It's near your Discord name, next to the global mute and deafen buttons.
- You must do this in the desktop Discord app. Hardware Acceleration isn't available on the mobile app.
It's in the left-hand sidebar, and it's near the bottom of the menu. It's the last option under "App Settings."

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3
Toggle off Hardware Acceleration. It's the second option in the menu. If the option has already been toggled off, you can exit the menu without changing anything.
- Previously, Discord had a Hardware Acceleration option under the Voice & Video menu as well, but this option is no longer there. The only Hardware Acceleration option can be found in the Advanced menu.
4
Click Change & Restart. When you disable Hardware Acceleration, you'll get a pop-up notifying you that you need to restart Discord to apply the change. Once Discord restarts, Hardware Acceleration will be disabled.
- If you want to enable Hardware Acceleration again, simply return to this menu and toggle Hardware Acceleration back on.

Section 2 of 2:

Reasons to Turn Off Hardware Acceleration

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The biggest reason many Discord users disable Hardware Acceleration is so they can stream Netflix in Discord without a black screen. In our research, it's actually more important to turn off hardware acceleration in your browser, but disabling Hardware Acceleration in Discord can also help fix this issue.
Some users have found that Hardware Acceleration actually makes Discord perform worse when they're in a voice chat, streaming, or watching someone else stream. If you're encountering issues while chatting or streaming, try disabling Hardware Acceleration to see if it fixes the issue.^{[1]
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Similar to the last reason, some users have found that having Hardware Acceleration enabled on Discord actually makes the games they're playing perform worse. If you have a higher-end CPU or GPU, this may not occur, however.^{[2]
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Rarely, some users have found that enabling Hardware Acceleration causes their Discord UI to look desaturated and washed out, while others have found that it makes their entire Discord client change colors. If Discord's UI is looking off, try disabling Hardware Acceleration to see if it's still happening.^{[3]
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