Adobe Illustrator 2018 distortion

[jacilynn15]

Anyone else having problems with the way graphics are being shown on the new illustrator? Some of my vectors are shown with lines and cracks missing. They still export fine, but just annoying to work with.

See image below:

[Bill Silbert · Accepted solution]

Try turning off GPU Performance. Click on the rocketship in Illustrator's top menu bar to access it.

[jacilynn15]

It worked! This is why I love the internet. Thanks Bill!

[Bill Silbert]

Happy to help.

[Cactus_Cowboy]

I see this answer given a lot to many problems posted about the present version of Illustrator "turn off or uncheck GPU", Why is that such a problem? Is it because this feature was coded into Illustrator to make use of higher end graphics cards, those featuring 4, 5 gigabytes and up RAM? Can you help me understand why if that's not the case it has not been removed if indeed it continues to cause so much frustration to Adobe's customer base.

[Doug A Roberts]

all we have to go on is this:

High Sierra (macOS 10.13) GPU rendering issues - Intel Graphics – Adobe Illustrator Feedback

i don't think it's a high-end/low-end problem. i've not seen it on a range of machines. it's entirely possible that most users don't see problems, as we're going to get a skewed view just going by the forums. no one's going to post saying 'it's working fine, thanks!'

[Cactus_Cowboy]

Not necessarily, there could be a lot of savvy folks that found their answer by researching the forum posts nevertheless they still encountered the problem it was just never posted. This still doesn't answer the question of why Adobe can't fix this problem permanently by doing something; anything that's a positive movement in the right direction. Remove or fix it. Also you never answered my question. What does this GPU selection do and what is it there for. Is it about high end graphics cards or not? Please don't mistake my demeanor as angry or condescending as I am neither, as a matter of fact I'm still a bit confused.

[Monika Gause]

Graphic cards these days are really powerful. So what the GPU acceleration does is use this processor power for rendering and other operations.

The trouble is: There are a myriad of graphic cards. Their design changes constantly in order to improve their power. You can try to understand the difference between the cards discussed in this thread: hardware - Difference between nVidia Quadro and Geforce cards? - Stack Overflow

When using the GPU for rendering, you not only depend on the system, but additionally the ever changing hardware and the ever changing drivers for that hardware. So once you're compatible with one card, another one changes something and when updating your app in order to cover that issue, you might again ruin something that has already been fixed 2 months ago. And some issues with specific cards are being investigated by Adobe together with Apple folks and together with the engineers of that specific card and they together haven't even isolated the issue - let alone fix it. It's that complicated.

[Cactus_Cowboy]

Thank you monika that's very clear indeed. I see your point about the ever evolving graphics card industry must drive Adobe crazy trying to keep up my sympathies to the programmers. Would you say this issue affects Apple more so than Windows or is it more or less even?

[Monika Gause]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Cactus+Cowboy  schrieb

Thank you monika that's very clear indeed. I see your point about the ever evolving graphics card industry must drive Adobe crazy trying to keep up my sympathies to the programmers. Would you say this issue affects Apple more so than Windows or is it more or less even?

It's more an issue of the cards.

Trouble with Apple is that you can't just update the card driver. You always have to wait for Apple to fix something. You also can't just plug in a different card, because Apple does not want you to even think of touching their precious and cautiously assembled (loughing out loud at this point) machines.

[Doug A Roberts]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Cactus+Cowboy  wrote

Would you say this issue affects Apple more so than Windows or is it more or less even?

i think if the apple intel cards problem was solved, we'd see 90% of the topics go away, since they seem to be the majority of what i see here. but that doesn't mean no more problems ever, like Monika said.

[Cactus_Cowboy]

Thx Doug and Monika. Two things I've taken away from reading the forums Q&A sessions is when installing the latest Illustrator makes sure to not check install previous settings and to immediately uncheck use GPU acceleration. Got it.

[gala_shigel]

The problem is observed on NVIDIA graphics cards (GTX 960), but is missing on AMD cards (HD 7770), which is ridiculous and CC2017. Maybe enough time has passed to make a correction?