How can I disable GPU rendering in Visual Studio Code

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Note that VSCode 1.40 (Oct. 2019) proposes an alternative to the parameter/flag --disable-gpu:

Disable GPU acceleration

We have heard issue reports from users that seem related to how the GPU is used to render VS Code’s UI.
These users have a much better experience when running VS Code with the additional --disable-gpu command-line argument.
Running with this argument will disable the GPU hardware acceleration and fall back to a software renderer.

To make life easier, you can add this flag as a setting so that it does not have to be passed on the command line each time.

To add this flag:

  • Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).
  • Run the Preferences: Configure Runtime Arguments command.
    This command will open a argv.json file to configure runtime arguments.
    You might see some default arguments there already.
  • Add 
    "disable-hardware-acceleration": true
  • Restart VS Code.

Note: Do not use this setting unless you are seeing issues!

Note that Gilbert points out in the comments to “How To Fix Screen Flickering Issue On Mac, MacBook, And iMac” from Preeti Seth.

Gilbert adds:

I fixed the problem by disabling automatic graphics switching on my macbook pro.
The setting is located in system preferences -> battery.
It worked!

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