Illustrator CPU preview NOT working / BUG REPORT

[jan_3657]

My Illustrator version:
Latest 2025 CC. It doesnt matter, cause it has been happening since CC 2024. OR at least when i switched to my AMD laptop in like mid 2024.

My laptop specs:
WINDOWS 11 PRO 23H2
Ryzen 7 8645HS with Radeon 780M
16GB LPDDR5x

The whole view of the program, the tab of the artboards, the actuall workspace just stops outputing/updating image when enabling any form of CPU displaying. But the icons, and zoom values on the edges of the program do update. So it does freeze only the part, where the sceene is displayed. Can be Outline view (ctrl+Y) or direct CPU view (ctrl+E). Doesn't matter, the program just stops displaying the workspace. When I try to move in the scene, nothing is happening, but when I switch back to GPU display, the work area is updated. The program itself does not freeze, my inputs are registered, it just does not update any visual.

The CPU rendering just does not work in illustrator. No settings help, no compatibility windows app settings help, no gpu driver settings help, no driver updates help, GPU acceleration in Photoshop can be disabled and the display still works, so its only Illustrator, that has this problem.

Pretty sure this is compatibility issue with this specific hardware and Illustrator. Again, it has NEVER worked on this laptop. For like 6 months now.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @jan_3657,

Would you mind performing a clean reinstallation of the GPU drivers (Intel / NVIDIA / AMD) and setting the Graphics Preference to High-Performance for Illustrator (https://adobe.ly/4hQyKiM) and checking if it helps?

Also, try the following steps and share your observations:

• Close all Adobe applications
• Remove Illustrator using the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool (https://adobe.ly/3EAvNol)
• Reinstall Illustrator using the Creative Cloud Desktop application (https://adobe.ly/4aVkZgs)
• Relaunch Illustrator

If the problem persists, kindly share the system report (https://adobe.ly/4aUPQKc), check if Illustrator behaves this way with all files, and share a small screen recording of the problem, so I can check it with the team.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[jan_3657]

OK, I did some digging and have some progress on this:

This has something to do with my external monitor plugged into my HDMI.
So when I start Illustrator without any external monitor, the Outline View is always CPU rendered and it never works.
When I start Illustrator on my second external monitor, the Outline view WORKS! But it doesn't state "/Outline CPU"  only "/Outline". Suggesting that it's using GPU to render the Outline View.
But when I have second external monitor plugged in, but I start Illustrator on my main laptop screen, the issue is still the same: Outline View does not work and it states "/Outline CPU" at the top.

So It's still somehow connected to GPU drivers, but I have no idea why it behaves this way.

As you said, I did full driver wipe (using DDU) and set GPU priority to high in Windows settings (this shouldn't do anything, cause I only have a single iGPU).

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm a little confused by the description of what is going with your laptop's main display and the external monitor attached to it.

CPU-based rendering of the workspace in Illustrator is the lesser quality version on screen rendering. With CPU rendering animated zoom is disabled. Certain effects aren't as polished looking on screen. It's usually a more common problem for a computer to be unable activate Illustrator's GPU rendering mode. The computer may have a graphics board that isn't supported by Illustrator. Aging computers can run into this problem.

In reference to Illustrator's Outline View, that will default to CPU mode on most computers, even if the computer has a high end graphics board. Being able to do things like use animated zoom in Outline View requires a monitor with greater than 2048 pixel-wide resolution. I have a very good desktop PC at work with a pair of 1080p resolution monitors; Illustrator's Outline View is limited to CPU mode there. My 17" notebook at home has a 120Hz UHD resolution display; Illustrator's animated zoom works in Outline View on that machine.

[jan_3657]

Here's a video recording of the issue. It's very hard to see, but when I toggle Outline View, the artboard section just freezes and refuses to update until I switch back to normal view. The same is happening with CPU view.

Again, if I start the program on an external monitor, this issue is not present. However, if I start the program on a built in monitor, then drag in onto external, it still happens like in the video. The video is recoded only on built in display, no external display connected to my laptop.

[Bobby Henderson]

Earlier you said your notebook's GPU drivers were up to date. Have you checked to see if there is a firmware update for your notebook? The notebook's firmware could affect all sorts of things. When connecting to external monitors the quality of the HDMI cable can make a difference; not all HDMI cables are the same.

[jan_3657]

Yes, my Firmware is up to date. The cable is a normal 1.4 HDMI cable, but I don't see a way that could play a role - it's not working when no cable is connected.

Now I found out, that disabling GPU acceleration and restarting Illustrator on any monitor, forces to run in CPU mode and it actually works, even the Outline view, but it its very laggy.

[Bobby Henderson]

Is your notebook still under warranty? If I was in your position I think I would call the manufacturer and tell them about the technical problem. It definitely sounds like a serious bug. There's no telling if the culprit could be something in the motherboard. Is the Radeon 780M an integrated graphics chip set rather than a discrete graphics board?

My only point about HDMI cables is they can be built to conform to different specs. An old cable made for HDMI 1.1 specs probably won't be able to pass through features for later standards such as HDMI 1.4 or the newer 2.x versions. Resolution, color depths, frame rates and overall data bandwidths can be different. An external monitor that supports UHD resolution and fast refresh rates (120Hz or more) will probably need a better HDMI cable than any "generic" cable that just happens to be laying around.