Panels
Device
The global GPU switch, and what Dope Track found on your machine.
Node Editor sidebar, Dope Track tab. It only appears while a Dope Track node tree is
open, so you won't see it in a shader or compositor tree.
This is the first panel in the tab and it starts open.
Use GPU
One switch for the whole add-on. Turn it off and every node stays on the CPU, no matter what the individual node is doing.
Underneath, a line tells you which way the switch is currently pointing:
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Acceleration: GPU when available | The switch is on. Nodes that can use the GPU will. |
| Acceleration: CPU only | The switch is off. |
"When available" is the honest wording. Not every step has a GPU path, and a node falls back to the CPU on its own if it can't use the card for that particular job.
Which GPU
A dropdown right under the switch, listing the NVIDIA cards found on your machine by index, name and memory, plus Automatic.
It only appears when Use GPU is on and there's at least one card to choose from, so a
CPU-only machine never sees it.
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| Automatic | Nothing is pinned. The driver picks, which in practice means device 0. |
| A specific card | Every GPU job runs on that card |
This covers all the GPU work, not just the solve: feature extraction, solving, and AI masks all follow it.
Automatic is not always the fast card. Device 0 is whatever Windows enumerated first, and on a machine with a display adapter alongside a workstation card that's often the wrong one. If you have two cards and the tracking feels slower than it should, this dropdown is the first thing to check.
With more than one card present, a line under the dropdown reminds you that only one is used at a time. The work isn't split across cards, so picking the fastest single card is the whole decision. Single-GPU machines don't get the note, since there's nothing to decide.
The choice is an add-on setting, so it persists across every file you open rather than resetting with each new scene.
What it found
Below the switch, the panel reports the GPU and driver it detected. If those lines look wrong or are missing, that is the thing to fix before blaming a node.
For the fuller picture of what has to be installed and working, see GPU and Dependencies. To have the add-on test all of it and write a report, use Run Diagnostics in Preferences.