• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Hitting Alt Makes Cursor Look/Feel Laggy and Slow (Been Happening for YEARS)

Community Beginner ,
Oct 20, 2023 Oct 20, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

This has been going on for MANY years/versions of Illustrator and I've seen many posts here about the issue but it's yet to be resolved or have any work arounds.

All you have to do to replicate the bug is to hit alt (don't even need to hold it) and assuming you're on a high refresh rate monitor you will instantly feel input lag and see the cursor moving at what appears to be 30fps or less, until you left click with mouse, then it will go back to normal. When you hit ALT there should be no difference in the rendering of the mouse cursor. It should feel and look just as smooth as before you hit ALT.

While this isn't a program breaking bug it's still annoying nonetheless. When you're used to moving the mouse at a certain speed and you hit alt to duplicate or whatever you want to do the mouse instantly feels off/slow and it really breaks down the smoothness of the program to me since ALT is a very critical hotkey.

Please work on fixing this next update.

This happens on newest version 28 and has happened on every version of illustrator as far back as I can remember over 8 years. Win 11 64 bit fully updated but again happened on Win 10 64 bit also. This is NOT an operating system specific issue. This is a bug within the Adobe Illustrator engine.

TOPICS
Bug , Performance

Views

952

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Beginner , Oct 21, 2023 Oct 21, 2023

For anyone on google searching about this issue. I figured out what was causing it. It's a bug that's been around since before 2010. It's a Windows/Adobe bug AFAIK. Hitting ALT highlights the menu in all programs. This is an old way of navigating through menu's without using a mouse. You can sort of turn this off in Windows 11 under Accessibility/keyboard/underline access keys but this doesn't fix the issue in Adobe programs. Again Adobe is bypassing that setting for some reason. NO ONE is using

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Adobe
Adobe Employee ,
Oct 20, 2023 Oct 20, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello @Atmo_nS,

We understand that encountering technical issues can be frustrating. I was unable to replicate this behavior on my end. Would you mind sharing some more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator, system config (CPU/GPU/Memory), a sample file (https://adobe.ly/3S3LaKD), and a screen recording of the problem (https://adobe.ly/3Frxly8), so we can investigate this further?

 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Thanks,

Anubhav

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Oct 21, 2023 Oct 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks for the reply. I will send everything you asked for, but again this has been going on for a long time and if you just google "laggy cursor alt" you will see many others with same issue. I know you have to go through these steps though in order to figure it out.

  • My current system is AMD 7950x3d, AMD 7900XTX, Gskill 6000mhz DDR5, 2TB Samsung Evo 960 SSD, LG 27GP850-B 27" 1440p 165hz monitor. Entire build here.
  • Windows 11 64 bit version 22H2 OS Build 22621.2428
  • Illustrator Version 28.0 (64-bit)
  • No sample file needed, this happens on a completely new file.
  • I did a screen recording with OBS and looked back on the recording, but because this appears to be some kind of fps bug with the cursor the recording didn't pick up the issue. My guess is since I'm using a high refresh rate monitor (165hz) the bug that brings my cursor to 30-60hz is why it makes it feel so bad or laggy, also why it's not captured on my 60fps recording. If you're trying to replicate this on a low refresh rate monitor it could be why you weren't able to see the same issue?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Oct 21, 2023 Oct 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

By looking up some old youtube videos (6 years old btw lol). I've seen the only fix was disabling GPU Performance. This is a bandaid and not a fix as I love using the GPU Performance and some of the settings that go along with it. So the ALT cursor bug lies somewhere there in the GPU Performance.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Oct 21, 2023 Oct 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

For anyone on google searching about this issue. I figured out what was causing it. It's a bug that's been around since before 2010. It's a Windows/Adobe bug AFAIK. Hitting ALT highlights the menu in all programs. This is an old way of navigating through menu's without using a mouse. You can sort of turn this off in Windows 11 under Accessibility/keyboard/underline access keys but this doesn't fix the issue in Adobe programs. Again Adobe is bypassing that setting for some reason. NO ONE is using these programs without a mouse in 2023 lol, they need to patch this.

The issue is for some reason when these menu's are selected within photoshop it triggers a lower framerate of the mouse and thus the bug this post is about, it also causes issues with other tools and Adobe programs. The only way to disable it is with an auto hotkey script or a script that runs preventing it from happening. As far as I can tell there is an issue that Adobe programs have where they can't tell the difference between physical keys being hit and virtual ones, but I don't know the specifics.

The fix was found in this video here. I downloaded the exe he links in the video description because I didn't want to run or mess with AutoHotKey at all. It fixed my issue described in my OP 100%. I still think there is a way for Adobe to patch this or allow for an option within the menu to disable that ease of access ALT button if you want. For years people were having this issue in Photoshop as well and someone else created a program to fix it also. It was called APsisstant and it did the same thing the program I linked above does but was taken down for some reason a while back so people just reverted to using AutoHotKey to trick Adobe into thinking the ALT key wasn't pressed.

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jan 31, 2025 Jan 31, 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

This solution worked great for me. Even though this is an old topic, the problem only recently showed up. It would only happen on Illustrator and Photoshop windows. As soon as my mouse slowly made it off the edge of the respective window, it would return to normal speed. Within Illustrator or Photoshop, the cursor remained slow until I clicked the mouse or hit escape. This was particularly frustrating when using the clone stamp and similar tools that required using the alt key heavily.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines