Spotify is the leader in on-demand digital music streaming. It started out only as a smartphone app at first but now it is available on all the popular platforms including Windows and macOS. Depending on the platform that you are using Spotify on, you will have access to different type of preferences. For example, if you are using Spotify on a Windows PC, then you have access to hardware acceleration feature which may not be available on some other platforms.
The hardware acceleration is enabled by default on the newer versions of Spotify for Windows PC. When it is enabled, Spotify makes use of the GPU to perform certain tasks. On a modern computer this will make Spotify very fast and smooth. But if you have a relatively older PC then your CPU or GPU might not be up to the task. Enabling hardware acceleration on such a computer will only give you some problems when using Spotify.
If you want to enable or disable hardware acceleration in Spotify for Windows, then there are two ways. One simple way is by selecting the menu (by clicking on the three dots near the top-left) and then choosing View → Hardware Acceleration.
Another way is through the Spotify preferences in the following manner:
- First you have to open Spotify preferences by pressing Ctrl+P or from the Spotify menu by selecting Edit → Preferences.
- On the preferences screen, scroll down to the very bottom and click on the View Advanced Settings.
- Find the Compatibility section and then select or deselect the option Enable hardware acceleration to enable or disable the hardware acceleration respectively.
If you have a Windows computer from before 2010 then perhaps you may want to disable hardware acceleration when using Spotify to make it work optimally. But if you have a much newer computer then you can enable hardware acceleration to make the most of your system.