M1 Previews - Curve Artifacts when previewing with GPU

[Miles M.]

Why is it that Illustrator on an M1 Mac doesnt display curves cleanly? Get strange artfacts all along the curves, making accurate illustration impossible. Switching to preview with CPU works fine. Screengrabs attached. If anyone has any ideas why, I would gleefully receive your suggestions.

This is Illustrator 101 surely. The Adobe migration to Apple Silicone hasnt been what you would expect from a multinational, major app organisation. Adobe is not some little workshop in a remote corner of the world making bespoke apps where you would anticipate basic issues to some extent. Apple Silicone isnt new any more in terms of the market, it's been here a year - which is an eternity in techological arenas.

Maybe rather than coming up with 30 odd apps and spreading themselves too thinly to try an make everyone happy Adobe should return to focussing on a core set of apps and ensuring they are market leading in each of these respective markets.

[Miles M.]

*Correction 55 Apps - Quantity over quality it seems

[Bill Silbert]

This sounds like more of a problem with GPU Performance rather than an issue with the M1 chip. Bad screen preview with GPU has been a problem since it first came out and has continued over several versions of Illustrator. This has been true for the older Intel chip as well as the M1. The feature seems to require just the right combination of video card, computer model and phase of the moon in order to work correctly. You can turn it off entirely through the Performance section of Illustrator's preferences. You will lose the animated zoom feature but it may be worth that to have better screen display.

[Miles M.]

Yes - thanks Bill, it certainly provides a work around, although I do notice redrawing now is slightly slower - giving a more 'jerky' experience when moving around the artwork. In some sense a price worth paying, but it is a work-round, rather than a fix - and I guess that's the specific part that frustrates me a little, why such a base level feature –the ability to utilise the power of your graphics card– introduces visual degradation or glitches in a professional level application. 

I don't recall having this specific issue with my Intel MBP, I will fire it up and try, but still remains something that shouldnt be present in this level of software.

Thank you for your suggestion 🙂

[Bill Silbert]

Happy to help.