Seeking help with Illustrator performance issues using graphics libraries

[butteredanchovy]

I'm an artist who crafts intricate collage-style portraits using graphics saved in an Illustrator library. I work extensively with custom vector emojis, using 500+ library graphics for some portraits. Lately, Illustrator has been so slow and laggy that it's unusable. Any idea what the cause of the slowdown might be? I have plenty of space on my computer, so that shouldn't be a concern. Would love to know if anyone has encountered similar issues and any possible solutions here? I appreciate it!

Thanks,

Scott

[Larry G. Schneider]

How often do you restart your computer and your version of AI? 

[Bobby Henderson]

Fast and/or stable performance depends on more than hard drive space. How much RAM does your computer have? Does the computer have a dedicated graphics board (and are the drivers up to date)? If you're simultaneously using hundreds of elements in a design it's possible for it to bog down a computer system, especially if the elements are complex in nature.

[butteredanchovy]

I restart my computer a few times a week and Creative Cloud a few times a day. 

[Larry G. Schneider]

As to Bobby's question, how much ram do you have? Are your designs getting more complex as you go deeper in this direction? You really need 64 GB of Ram for this kind of stuff.

[butteredanchovy]

Ah OK. I only have 8 GB of RAM so that could definitely the be the isuse. Does something like this seem like it should be memory intensive? https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/a013cd58-c3a4-4cb0-5884-2d5bfa674be5

[Monika Gause]

That could be the case. Lots of elements in there, gradients and stuff.

[Larry G. Schneider]

Have you tried using Symbols for the repeating elements? This may make it go faster.