Participant

Question

Illustrator CS6 - Lagging - extremely slow!!

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
May 16, 2012
45 replies
125002 views

Has any one experinced CS6 Illustrator lagging and responding extremely slow. For example if I try to move a vector graphic it takes a few seconds before it re-freshes and updates. That goes for about everything re-sizing, moving, editing.....

I know it's not my computer. CS5 worked great. My computer is a Mac Pro running with 16GB of ram and solid state drives.

Any one have any suggestions??

illustrator

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adamonsea

Participant

Same problem for me on windows 10pc. New computer - 64gb ram.

I've switched off the windows menu bar as recommended above - to test. Thanks Kevin

I've heard from my PC supplier that SSD scratch discs might be to blame. I'd prefer not to have to buy a dedi drive obviously - especially without knowing it's a fix.

Round of beers for whoever comes up with the solution.

H

HyprDrft

Participant

I've now fixed this issue on my Windows 10 machine by unticking "GPU performance" in preferences. It's a shame since I have a GTX 980 Ti and Illustrator ran like butter on it (when it was working).

Same thing might work for Mac users.

Please fix this Adobe!

zopfan

Known Participant

Where can I find this option in Preferences or wherever?

C

christianium

Participating Frequently

I'm experiencing the exact same issues now in CC 2015, working with (slightly complex) files that ran smoothly in 2014. Tried all proposed solutions suggested when googling 'Illustrator lag', nothing seems to make any difference.

If you ask me, it's a bug, arising at some stage since 2014 (and perhaps repeatedly since 2012?).
Pretty silly if we all have to use RyanUnger01's workaround, but I'll give it a whirl until Adobe fixes their CC 2015. I'll let you know if it helps in my case...

C

christianium

Participating Frequently

Have now tried RyanUnger01's workaround, with no visible effect.

R

RyanUnger01

Participant

I found an okay workaround, not a solution, but it can get you through things when you don't have the time to sit.

Try saving your .ai file, then Save As an .eps file on your desktop. Work off of the .eps file then when you are ready to send it off or whatever you want, just save it as an .ai again

E

ep927

Participant

What's the difference between an eps and ai?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

ep927 schrieb
What's the difference between an eps and ai?

EPS is an outdated file format that hasn't been updated in this century. It can be written and read by several applications.

Encapsulated PostScript - Wikipedia

It should be treated carefully when saved from Illustrator:

EPS – the Zombie among file formats

AI is Illustrator's native, proprietary file format.

A

andynjd60

Participant

Yup, tried all sorts, streamlining fonts, usual suspects etc. Still the same. C'mon Adobe, its soul destroying watching a spinning wheel on a pretty new imac, good memory, latest software...enough said. Sort this!

kevind82335850

Inspiring

I just wanted to throw in my $0.02. I just solved my extreme lag issue (sometimes waiting 15-20 seconds just to wait for a pan/zoom or resizing an object. After MUCH troubleshooting i realized what the problem was....when manipulating anything I noticed the Navigator window/panel itself would freeze up and take quite a long time to redraw its little thumbnail. So I turned off the window/panel, BOOM, everything was lightning fast again. I re-enabled it, slow as hell again.

Hope this helps!

- Kevin

M

Mikelsaint2029

Known Participant

Same Issue here, Core i7, CPU 2.30 GHz, 16GB installed RAM, Win 7.

Everything literally slows down to a halt and is extremely unbearable to finish anything simple in this program. I've done the uninstall - reinstall bit, I feel there is something extremely corrupt with Illustrator for this many people having the same issue...nothing has been updated with the GPU performance utilization on adobe's end for years now. Whats the deal here? I am working on simple stuff that doesn't require much yet it is slowing down to a creep. I don't have this experience on Photoshop or any other program, I dont have a virus or malware noticeable. the one thing that I can't verify is this Adobe CEF helper that is running in my processes. Otherwise I dont comprehend what could be causing this. If Adobe refuses to address this people will just simple stop using the suite. No sweat off our backs.

H

HyprDrft

Participant

I'm frustrated at seeing the same thing on my PC! The program starts off blazingly fast and then proceeds to slow down more and more as I use it. After about 2 hours, it becomes really noticeable and if I try to save my work, it will crash. I haven't lost any work so far but having to restart Illustrator every hour or so is really interrupting my workflow.

What's weird is, when Illustrator slows down my whole PC slows down too. It's not related to RAM or system specs since I'm running a pretty beefy PC:

i7 6700

8GB

Geforce GTX 980 Ti

ferdi_

Known Participant

I have a Macbook Pro Retina, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3, and I can't use Illustrator CC 2015 as I used to use Illustrator CS2 in my old Mac. I want to comeback to my old system. I try to unchecking GPU and doesn't work for me. I'm drawing and to move it take 2 seconds!!! Sooo stressful. The same to save the document. C'mon ADOBE! Something is not working well with your programs. Help me, please. Sorry my poor english. Thank you!

jackffuchs

Participant

Same here. MacBook Pro 13" (late 2013 i7)

It's so annoying!

A

Abed_Mukahhal

Participant

Just try unchecking the GPU Performance . its worked for me on Illustrator CC 2015.

also Windows 10 OS.

V

vaporbank

Participant

I understand that this may be a viable, temporary workaround; but it isn't acceptable. I'm a graphic designer, trying to make a living creating graphics in Adobe Illustrator. I have spent large amounts of money on both my PC and this software, and now in order to create graphics, I need to disable my hardware designed to handle this. Beautiful.

I really wish Adobe would give me the usable software that I am paying hard earned money for.

And before anyone asks (since I'm new here):
AMD FX 8350 8-core (4GHz)
nVidia GTX 970
16GB RAM
both disks are SSD
Windows 10 64bit

M

Mikelsaint2029

Known Participant

I'm right there with ya buddy. The struggle is real and I'm sick of forking over nearly $600 a year and getting little to nowhere due to so many problems with this software. It's a powerful suite if you by chance have a monstrous rig that can chew up ram and cpu like it's nothing. But not everyone has that, we normal humans have a decent setup. I myself have a 3500 laptop with all the essentials I'll ever need to run vector work. Still getting the major lag.... no excuse because it's the 3rd laptop in switched out because I suspected it was internal issues. Obviously that theory has been tested and disproven. Adobe told me the same thing today...turn off GPU...sure, maybe I should just design on my android phone Whole I'm at it.

EF_Creative

Participant

So here is what I'm thinking. If CS6 was working great for most of us, what is causing the lag with CC?

My Theories:

A) Unsupported GPU

My GPU is not supported in Illustrator CC. Although the models before and after mine are.

When I go into Outline Mode, I'm able to move around on the page much much faster.

B) Ram/Scratch disk

I think this might be a memory issue. When I open smaller files, CC moves really quickly, just like CS6. But when I open a file with tons of elements, a few Fonts, a few images and tons of artboards and elements, things LAG really really bad, as the rest of you reported.

Has anyone experienced improvements with small files or using Outline mode?

Also has anyone tried hooking up a big blank external scratch disc? I'm going to try the scratch disc method as I don't feel like spending money on Ram or a new Graphics Card. (I should have just bought a Mac, ha!)

I also may try CC out on my desktop which is a custom build PC.

I'll let everyone know what I find. Please let me know if any of you find any solutions.

Thanks

-Eric

EF Creative (@efcreate) • Instagram photos and videos

Behance