Illustrator CC 2014 extremely choppy. Please help.

[bozogubu]

I just bought an iMac 5k Retina Base model with Yosemite installed. All other CC applications work like a breeze except illustrator. Illustrator is extremely choppy and almost unworkable. Can someone help me out?

[jayquercia]

Just got my 5k iMac up and running and noticed this same issue. Low res mode works, but it's no fun to look at.

UPDATE: CS6 seems to have better performance, low res graphics though. This really is a shame. Looks like I should try out an alternative...

[petersch73]

Until now no fix. (Exept non retina mode vor a smaller window). Affinity designer looks good, but until now no artboards possible. If possible and there no fix for Illustrator i will switch maybe. Indesign is also not as smooth. Quark is too extensive at the Moment.

Another (but extensive) idea: how does Illustrator run in a second monitor with 2560x1440px (native resolution). For example eizo cx 271, dell 2715h, NEC 271... And so on? So the retina mac would be the second monitor.... Sad but maybe working.

[sltplz]

AD is an excellent alternative but it needs to grow up (see the road map on their forum concerning the future functionalities updates).

Your second monitor should work but what a shame.

Another alternative: download switchResX to change your resolution to higher but non retina. Exemple with a 15" MBPR, native resolution is 2880x1800px HiDPI, with switchResX you can disable Retina and go up to 3840x2400px and illustrator is fluid again. Pixel density will be higher than a simple non retina mode (2880x1800px non-HiDPI) but the global interface will be small.

Thanks again Adobe.

[bozogubu]

IVe been using the retina Mac for about two months now and I tell you, it's a dream. Thankfully in the last two months, I've been editing more than designing. A few design jobs that I got, I've managed to give it to other Designers I know. From all the discussin above, I must say that there is hope. My retina Mac I'll remain awesome and as time goes by people will optimise apps and stuff to look and work spectacular on my Mac. But on the other hand there's Adobe. knowing that this problem has been around for more than a year now scares me a bit. What if they don't fix it in the next 3-4 years?

ive said this before. I paid money for a product. And the product does not perform well. Shouldn't I get a refund or a discount?

[jayquercia]

I'm with you, while it's easy for Adobe to write this issue off as entitled designers whining about trivial problems, our workflow really does take a hit, especially when we have to intentionally slow down in order to plot points / handles correctly. Sure it costs me more time and frustration, but more importantly it degrades my trust in the product. To be blunt, illustrator in this configuration is unusable. I'm surprised the retina MBPers haven't complained about this when they got their retina displays a year ago (or maybe that have been and Adobe just hasn't listened?)

[anubhav_r]

We are listening and we will be fixing this issue in the coming months. We are really hoping that it will be early next year.

I'm going to try and put up an early access sign up sheet so that users on this thread can try out AI CC 2014 builds that run like butter on the 5K iMac in the coming months.

--Anubhav

Anubhav Rohatgi

Group Product Manager, Design

[sltplz]

Wait and see...

[bozogubu]

Anubhav,

thats seriously good to hear. 🙂

[hybriddesign]

I'm not on a mac but was having the same issues on both my i7 desktop with 16gb ram and i5 laptop with 8gb ram.  I just adjusted the virtual memory to a 16mb versus allowing the computer to adjust it as needed and it's night and day smoother.  Hoping that this is a permanent fix as right now I'm also sitting on multiple computers that need to be updated to cc but am hesitant to because of how ridiculously slow it's been on machines just recently zipping along running cs6.

[anubhav_r]

That does not sound right. We would love to get on a screensharing session with you to understand what's going on.

Can we do this in the first week of January? Adobe is shut until the new year.

--Anubhav

[hybriddesign]

Hi, Possibly.  It might be hard to recreate it though over a screen share as I believe i have to restart the computer each time I update the virtual memory.  Illustrator CC runs slowly on both computers although the faster desktop has a lot less lag.  Flyout menus, tool selection (for instance if I click on the artboard settings icon it takes a good 2-4 seconds to switch to the mode where I can edit the artboard), and even simple things like grabbing the handles on a rectangle to resize it have horrible lag.  Things like rendering a drop shadow seem to be about the same but it's the everyday, every minute type of simple tasks that are effected the most.

[pacifique1234]

AnubhavRohatgi wrote:

We are listening and we will be fixing this issue in the coming months. We are really hoping that it will be early next year.

I'm going to try and put up an early access sign up sheet so that users on this thread can try out AI CC 2014 builds that run like butter on the 5K iMac in the coming months.

--Anubhav

Anubhav Rohatgi

Group Product Manager, Design

That would be fantastic. Do keep us posted.

[J_Beech]

I would like to participate in this beta testing for this fix if possible. Luckily I am also running a 2560px x 1440px monitor next to my 5k iMac, so I can work on that monitor for now which seems to be a lot less choppy. Also is there any way we can track the progress of this fix? Thanks.

[sltplz]

Don't hope for a beta version too soon... It's been 2 years since the original "retina update" as been released...

[sltplz]

This thread will not be forgotten!

[alexharris]

Adobe, thanks for replying with info for this. Just fanning these flames a bit more. My work computer has been updated to retina, and Illustrator is fatally slow, killing my workflow. Agreed with poster above, this is a critical problem. Please fix.

[sltplz]

You're damn right!

[Crowe About It]

Adobe Indesign has pretty much the same issues as Illustrator. So hopefully a fix for both will surface.

[Silver_Jade]

sltplz has a great work around for the time being until Adobe get their act together:

• Open up your mac's application folder where illustrator is found
• Go into the Adobe Illustrator folder
• Select the Illustrator app file and press COMMAND + I ... OR ... Right click it, and select GET INFO (Not SHOW INFO)
• In the info panel that pops up, under the General section, expand it
• Click OPEN IN LOW RESOLUTION
• Close info panel
• Run Illustrator

This disables the Retina HiDPI. You will notice the pixels, but Illustrator will run as though it was on a standard 2560x1440 Mac screen. I assume you can apply this same process to any app (correct me if I'm wrong). I know I'll be doing it to Lightroom, which sucks major ass.

I hope this helps everyone in the interim.

Still angry at you Adobe. You deserve a spanking for this screw up. You should have seen this one coming. Particularly since we are forking out top dollar each month for you to sit on your thumbs.

[jdotpak]

Photoshop is now extremely choppy as well (but still usable, even though extremely aggravating). It is definitely a resolution issue. I think it is a Yosemite issue really but Adobe and apple have the responsibility to work this out As a high priority BUG.

im wondering if ANYone on this thread is NOT on Yosemite?

[Silver_Jade]

I still have no problems with Photoshop. Photoshop is one of the Adobe apps that utilise GPU across the board. Are you sure it's not your computer/settings or the complexity of your document?

[Luca Farina]

Yes, with your suggestion there is a small improvement, but we are still far from decency. Also it is doubly sad work with graphics across jagged ...

It's crazy, Powerpoint works better than Illustrator.

Sorry for my English translated by google.

[Fergus Raphael]

Bumping this post - as I have the identical issue.

I have a totally maxed out MBP 13" 2014. The apps don't crash and are stable, but are so slow and choppy as to be unusable.  I can open a file that works beautifully on an old 2GB RAM Core Duo running CS3, and in CC I can't zoom in our out without the screen juddering and stalling down to about 1FPS.  It's so bad I actually returned/exchanged by beautiful new machine because I thought it was broken. New computer has same issues on clean install.  What are my options?  I am spending a ton of money just to get worse performance.

Brand new CC user also.  Longtime CS user, having bough CS2/3/5/6. I finally updated to CC to resolve another unrelated compatibility/performance issue.  Unfortunately I can't even achieve simple file zooming or panning, let alone work in multi-layer files.  This is on a clean install of everything on a maxed out 2014 MBP.  I spent days going through troubleshooting purgatory.  Apple support, reformat, roll back OS, even had the machine exchanged by Apple because I thought there were hardware issues.  Now my replacement machine has arrived and CC has the exact same issues.  I'm fuming. I've spent thousands of dollars on upgrades, and I now can't even work on files on this new machine.  My CC subscription is being billed to my VISA, but honestly it's not much good having apps like Fireworks or Edge-Reflow if I can't earn my daily wage in Photoshop.  This is a work machine and I face deadlines.  There are real costs associated with a tool just stopping.

Beyond this thread, has Adobe acknowledged this crippling performance issue?  On the Q&A on the support page around Illustrator it says there are no known issues.  I think that's dishonest.  I would like to request their support department suspend billing on my subscription until such time as the apps, you know,  ... work.

[Silver_Jade]

Fergus,

If you have a retina mac, please see my above note about a workaround. As far as getting a billing hiatus, good luck. Whilst it would be nice, it's the same as saying you want a billing hiatus because you can't get it to work on a 10yr old mac. It works, just slowly and clearly wasn't design for retina devices. Disable HiDPI and you should get the applications to perform at a decent frame-rate again.

Another thread has made mention that the problem has been acknowledged and there is a fix in the works from Adobe, and that they are hoping to release it early in 2015. You may be looking at March/April release date. The problem is that Adobe apps generally don't support GPU (crazy, I know), and that Adobe need to strip and rebuild their rendering engine to cater for the extra processing demand that comes with 5k devices. Then they have to do quality assurance testing to make sure it holds up to whatever standards they use. It takes time.

As much as I hate Adobe for screwing us around on this, patience is required. Making demands and threats are just going to get ignored. If you aren't happy, talk with your wallet and cancel your subscription and get some other software that does the trick for you.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Daniel

[pacifique1234]

Fergus, sorry to hear about your frustrations. We're all here because we're in the same boat.

A really good solution would be to use a secondary monitor. I have an extra Cinema Display that I have connected to my Retina iMac -- I run illustrator on it and it works perfectly. The dual display setup is not unusual for designers, though it does mean you'll have to acquire an extra monitor.

Someone had mentioned this before, by the way, just wanted to reiterate. The downside is that you don't get to experience design on the 5k iMac display.

Dell makes a $250 monitor that I've used before and it's really great. Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor - $250 on Amazon, via Canopy