Poor Illustrator Performance on Windows while using effects like Gaussian blur, drop shadow, etc

You are not ram starved, but your symptoms sound very much like you do not have enough ssd space - best practice is to have at LEAST 20 percent available at all times and 30 percent is a better choice. You also might consider launching "uninstall adobe cloud" but choosing "repair" to see if that helps...

@Bigfoot Grafix I work on a MacBook Pro, 2.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, a NVIDIA GeForce GT/

Intel Iris Pro graphics card. One of things that slowed my MacBook was using the 'Beta' versions of Adobe Illustrator. Actually, even the Photoshop Beta slowed it down too. Once, I uninstalled all of the 'Beta' versions, and just used the regular version of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop that definitely help speed things up. I thought it was just me, but in a Facebook group called 'Adobe Illustrator Users Help & Support (Unofficial)' also had suggested the same thing too with regards of 'uninstall all Adobe Beta programs'

I would also say anything with AI on my MacBook it does slow it down. Granted, I only have 16gigs of RAM so, I get that. At 64 Gigs, I am kinda surprised actually! Speaking with Apple the other day as I am planning to either buy the new M3 or wait until the M4, the newer Macs will be able to handle the AI much better....but this is besides the point.

But, overall, working with complex designs involving drop shadows, Gaussian blur, outer glow, and high-resolution files can significantly slow down Adobe Illustrator, especially when you scale up a design, the number of pixels and points increases exponentially, demanding more resources from Illustrator.. There is no doubt about that. 

Are you using images as part of your design? If possible, convert the images and effects to outlines or shapes whenever possible. This might improve performance, especially when working with resizing back to a larger files. A part of me thinks there might be images involved. If the file is converted to all to outlines, it would be a vector shape. Which means vectors don't rely on pixels, there's no risk of pixelation or blurriness when enlarging the image. They can be scaled up or down without losing quality. Therefore, scaling up a 1"x1" vector to 30"x30" should produce a clear and sharp print.

You could also link your images first versus embedding the images in the files. This would improving overall responsiveness while working on your files. When the time comes, you could either include the link images with the Illustrator document or embed them when the time comes for final output. 

Hi @Bigfoot Grafix,

I'm really sorry to hear about the performance issues you're facing with Illustrator, especially when it's affecting your work. With your strong setup, it’s understandable how frustrating this must be.

One thing you might try is optimizing your NVIDIA GPU settings specifically for Illustrator. There's a helpful third-party tutorial that could guide you through this process: https://adobe.ly/4cnFMIB.

Also, could you confirm if you have an SSD installed on your PC and whether Illustrator is running from that? Sometimes, this can make a significant difference. If you’re able to, sharing a small screen recording demonstrating the issue would be really helpful, too. We’re here to assist you in any way we can to get this resolved.

Thanks for your patience!

Best regards,
Anshul Saini