MacOS – Video stuttering in Google Chrome with hardware acceleration enabled

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Google Chrome comes by default with Hardware Acceleration enabled. This setting can be changed from the advanced settings.

I'm experiencing a very frustrating problem where most video content on Google Chrome experiences visual stutters that last up to 6 seconds. Moving the mouse seems to unfreeze the video, but it will otherwise not unfreeze until after a few seconds, only to freeze again shortly thereafter.

Disabling Hardware Acceleration eliminates the stutter. As a side-effect, all web content becomes slower and more CPU-intensive, especially pages that make use of CSS visual effects. As such, it's not viable to keep using the software without Hardware Acceleration.

I'm experiencing this problem only when using Google Chrome and only when doing so on my 2017 15" MBP. The computer is upgraded to the highest-tier hardware, so I don't suspect it's a question of underpowered hardware.

My 2012 non-retina 15" MBP also does not display this issue. One of the main differences is that I have two users logged into the MacBook at the same time, one being my personal and the other my work account. I often switch between these. This question has a similar background but no solution.

The problem also doesn't appear to be constant. Sometimes videos will play without stutter. This might be related to the automatic graphic switching. At the moment my graphics card is set to High-Performance and I can see no stuttering. I never noticed any stuttering when I tried playing the same content on Safari after experiencing stutter in Chrome.

Is there a solution to the stuttering?

Hardware/Software details:

  • Google Chrome: Version 61.0.3163.100 (Official Build) (64-bit)
  • OS: macOS Sierra: 10.12.6 (16G29)
  • Model: MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)
  • Processor: 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7
  • Memory: 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
  • Graphics: Radeon Pro 560 4096 MB, Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB
  • External Display: LG 34UC98, connected via Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter and Thunderbolt 2 cable. Note the issue appears on both internal and external display.

Best Answer

I had same problem and the solution is go to System Preferences > Keyboard and uncheck turn keyboard backlight off. This will make Chrome work smoothly .

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