Adobe Adding Support for Mac Pro's Afterburner Card to Premiere Pro

Beta builds of Premiere Pro include support for Apple's Afterburner accelerator card, Adobe told Premiere Pro users earlier this week. Premiere Pro and After Effects were recently updated with native ProRES RAW support.

macproafterburner
The Apple Afterburner is a ProRes and ProRes RAW accelerator card that is an optional add-on accessory available in the 2019 Mac Pro. It supports playback of up to 3 streams of 8K Pro-Res RAW or 12 streams of 4K ProRes RAW.

Adobe says that Premiere Pro supports decode acceleration of ProRes 4444 and 422 codecs using the Afterburner card, but ProRES RAW acceleration through the Afterburner card is not supported at this time.

The Metal renderer must be selected for use in the applications (this is already the default setting):
After Effects (Beta): File > Project Settings... > Video Rendering and Effects > select "Mercury GPU Acceleration (Metal)"
Media Encoder (Beta): Preferences > General > Video Rendering > select Renderer: "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (Metal) - Recommended"
Premiere Pro (Beta): File < Project Settings > General > select Renderer: "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (Metal) - Recommended"

Adobe is seeking ‌Mac Pro‌ users with an Afterburner card to test the ProRes 422 or 4444 support to improve the feature.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Iridescent Feature 2

iPhone 17 Pro Clear Case Leak Reveals Three Key Changes

Sunday August 31, 2025 1:26 pm PDT by
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 series on Tuesday, September 9, and last-minute rumors about the devices continue to surface. The latest info comes from a leaker known as Majin Bu, who has shared alleged images of Apple's Clear Case for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, or at least replicas. Image Credit: @MajinBuOfficial The images show three alleged changes compared to Apple's iP...
iPhone 17 Pro Dark Blue and Orange

iPhone 17 Release Date, Pre-Orders, and What to Expect

Thursday August 28, 2025 4:08 am PDT by
An iPhone 17 announcement is a dead cert for September 2025 – Apple has already sent out invites for an "Awe dropping" event on Tuesday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The timing follows Apple's trend of introducing new iPhone models annually in the fall. At the event, Apple is expected to unveil its new-generation iPhone 17, an all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17...
iphone 16 pro ghost hand

iPhone 17 Pro: 5 Reasons Not to Upgrade This Year

Monday September 1, 2025 4:35 am PDT by
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series this month, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive. If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming to...
xiaomi apple ad india

Apple and Samsung Push Back Against Xiaomi's Bold India Ads

Friday August 29, 2025 4:54 am PDT by
Apple and Samsung have reportedly issued cease-and-desist notices to Xiaomi in India for an ad campaign that directly compares the rivals' devices to Xiaomi's products. The two companies have threatened the Chinese vendor with legal action, calling the ads "disparaging." Ads have appeared in local print media and on social media that take pot shots at the competitors' premium offerings. One...
iOS 18 on iPhone Arrow Down

Apple Preparing iOS 18.7 for iPhones as iOS 26 Release Date Nears

Sunday August 31, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is preparing to release iOS 18.7 for compatible iPhone models, according to evidence of the update in the MacRumors visitor logs. We expect iOS 18.7 to be released in September, alongside iOS 26. The update will likely include fixes for security vulnerabilities, but little else. iOS 18.7 will be one of the final updates ever released for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR,...
iPhone 17 Pro Iridescent Feature 2

iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Prices Estimated Ahead of Apple Event Next Week

Tuesday September 2, 2025 1:50 pm PDT by
Just one week before Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 series, an analyst has shared new price estimates for the devices. Here are J.P. Morgan analyst Samik Chatterjee's price estimates for the iPhone 17 series in the United States, according to 9to5Mac: Model Starting Price Model Starting Price Change iPhone 16 $799 iPhone 17 ...

Top Rated Comments

CWallace Avatar
69 months ago
Umm. Why wasn't it supported already?
Adobe being Adobe?
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
69 months ago
Great!

So now the app will utilise 1.5% more of the hardware.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
daley Avatar
69 months ago

Let me answer that, because FCP X is a hot mess
Have you used FCPX lately? I find it much more stable than PP, and the speed in both editing and exporting is unmatched.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
UMHurricanes34 Avatar
69 months ago
As co-founder of a video marketing agency this is, sadly, one of the most exciting things I’ve read in a long time. Can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but thank you Adobe. There are still tons of issues to fix with Premiere on macOS but this at least an encouraging step.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
amartinez1660 Avatar
69 months ago

Because the number of people with these boards and adobe number maybe in a few thousands?
Maybe, but I think Adobe in general makes bloated software with no substantial (at least publicly or to my knowledge) engine code/performance upgrades... it’s all about adding new features nobody asked for (like that weird 3D text engine), slower interface, and heavier startup times (for no apparent reason). Photoshop, it is my understanding that it’s still dependent on ancient engine code. Just check the Zoom or Spin Blurs... they take ages and at least up until a year ago, you couldn’t even visualize a preview of it before applying it. Something that’s pretty much real-time nowadays on your mid-lower end mobile phone game.
After Effects, I love it dearly... but is there a way for this thing to be fast? Every new CC update is slower, checking the “performance enhancer” (like OpenGL ‘acceleration’) actually makes it slower... just doing ctrl+z on a medium sized project can take seconds, even if it was just clicking a single layer visbility, it’s just 10x faster to click it back yourself without undoing. After Effects for me is just a (very nice mind you) interface hub for a bunch of state of the art plugins... where all those plugins be hosted on another better software, I would make the jump.
The video game dev community stirred up a bit when they bought Allegorithmic and their Substance Suite... in fear of getting tainted by Adobe’s hands, we will see the consequences of that in a couple of years max.
Where Resolve or FCPX take 5 mins to render a 4K vid, premiere could very well take 200mins, no joke.
But credit where’s credit is due, it is NOT garbage... far from it, it kicks ass in its own way.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bassjunky Avatar
69 months ago

I wish it had the snappiness of FCX because there's no way in hell I'm using FCX...
May I ask why?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)