Alex M.

                    18. 5. 2026, 11:00 · General
                

GPU showing only 20% utilization during playback

I have an RTX 4080 but Resolve only uses about 20% of it during playback and rendering. Task Manager shows the GPU barely working while my CPU is at 100%. Shouldnt Resolve be GPU-accelerated? What settings am I missing?

3 replies

David K. · 18. 5. 2026, 13:45

Go to Preferences > Memory and GPU. Make sure GPU Processing Mode is set to CUDA (not OpenCL) and uncheck any Limit GPU options. Also set your decode mode to GPU accelerated instead of auto. That should shift the load.

Sarah C. · 18. 5. 2026, 19:30

The 100% CPU thing usually means youre decoding H.264 or H.265 files on CPU. Resolve uses the GPU for effects and color but decoding compressed codecs often falls back to CPU. Try generating Optimized Media in a GPU-friendly codec like DNxHR and the GPU utilization will jump up.

Alex M. · 19. 5. 2026, 08:15

Switching decode to GPU and generating Optimized Media made a massive difference. GPU now at 60-70% and CPU dropped to 40%. Playback is way smoother. Should have done this ages ago.