Illustrator 2021 running laggy

[Jon Coppola]

Hi everyone,

I recently upgraded from a 2015 Macbook Pro (refurbished base model) to a 2019 Macbook Pro (specs listed below), and I'm not exaggerating, my older Mac runs Illustrator way better than this thing. It's so disappointing. Especially with complex vectors, high res images etc. I can't figure out what's wrong with it.

Also, sometimes files I'm working on seem to just appear shattered and broken (see attached screenshots). All the art would be in a clipping mask, but then different zoom levels would make it look like they're outside and loose all of a sudden.

I've tried some of the suggestions on similar posts like adjusting (or turning off) icloud backups, resetting Illustrator preferences, GPU performance, animated zoom, adjusting the workspace, deleting and reinstalling Illustrator, etc etc and nothing works at all.

Does anyone have any fresh ideas on what might be going on?

Thank you in advance!

Jon

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2019 MacBook Pro specs:

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)

2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9

64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Macintosh HD

AMD Radeon Pro 5600M 8 GB

C02FT04VMD6W

Big sur

V 11.3.1

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi Jon,

We're sorry to hear about your experience. Do you see this behavior while working on a specific file?

I'd also request you to try the suggestions given on this community post(https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/resolve-slow-performance-and-unexpected-behaviors-in-illu...) & let us know if it helps to improve the performance of the app.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[Jon Coppola]

Hi Ashutosh,

Thanks for your reply and help. It happens with any file that starts to have complex elements in it as I build them up and design it. I tested the same files on my 2015 Macbook Pro, and there are no issues at all. Even though it runs a little slower on an older Mac, it's still faster than my 2019 Macbook Pro, and without any weird issues happening.

I checked out the link, I did try a few of those already, but there are some I haven't tried, so I'll try them out and let you know what happens.

Thanks again. I'll reach out to you after I try these other suggestions.

Jon