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Is Illustrator CS5 performance better than Illustrator CS6?

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
May 8, 2012
17 replies
141862 views

There is a pretty sharp decline in smoothness of panning, zooming, dragging elements around the screen in Ai CS6.

Using both versions side by side on MacBook Pro i7, 8gb Ram, 10.6.8. Ai v16.0.0. The files are as small as 0-200k.

Ai CS6 is simply jumpy and laggy. Try a new blank artboard of 800x600 in both and drag around view at 100% zoom. The artboard skips around.

It's not unusable, but its there, and for me overshadows the improvements.

Thanks,

Brent

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer ykhatri

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the Illustrator Engineering Team.

We have been following this thread and the issues discussed here are a cause of concern for us. We have been working closely with most of you either directly or through customer support, and we have been able to fix issues that led to sub optimal performance by following some of these approaches:

1. Creating a new user account.

2. Clearing font cache

3. Dumping personal cache files and repairing permissions

4. Installing latest OS updates.

5. Disabling beam sync

6. Clearing any extra appearance attributes which might have applied to the artwork.

7. Deleting any stray points in the file.

8. Turning off some unnecessary/conflicting processes.

9. Stopping any web streaming.

10. Clearing unwanted mixed appearances

Since performance issues are typically hard to isolate, we would like to work with you individually to understand and isolate your issues. Most of you would have already got an email from an Adobe representative by now, and if not, you can write to us at ‘ShareWithAI@adobe.com’.

Additionally we request you to create a new thread for each issue so that its easier for the user community to find relevant information for their issue.

Looking forward to working with you to isolate these issues.

Thanks

Yogesh

On behalf of Illustrator Engineering Team

J

Josip_C_

Participant

This makes significant improvement to me. Mostly working with big files... with many linked images ... Hope you will notice the diference.

B

Blaskotron

Participating Frequently

Anyone heard anything on when Adobe will have Illustrator GPU performance enabled on Macbooks?

It's super smooth with that enabled on Windows.

I have a coworkers Macbook that just left, but I don't think its worth taking if I have to work in GPU-less Illustrator.

Cimi74

Participant

Brand new Mac Pro (Late 2013),

3,7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5

12 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC

Very disappointing CS6 performance!

Not to say again that you hear from a few people. They may have a lot of work, and not to deal with the poor performance of the software in which they work.

B

Blaskotron

Participating Frequently

I'm the original poster, and after almost two years it looks like this is still an issue with a brand new, latest generation 2014 fully loaded Macbook Pro with Yosemite and the latest CC edition of Illustrator.

I can still have a brand new empty document, stock illustrator settings and full screen panning around the screen is noticeably jumpy compared to a Windows machine.

Tried the suggested tweaks but it seems the transition to the Mercury engine made Illustrator a rather poor performer.

It seems to be tied to the size of the window. A full screen Illustrator window is fairly slow and a quarter of the screen size window is pretty quick. And when I set the retina display settings to "Larger" which shows a much less dense resolution and am at full screen, Illustrator is performing very fast. Jumping back to "Regular" or even "More Space" its back to stuck in the mud and laggy. (Note my old Macbook was a 2011 non-retina screen but I do recall the size of the window having an effect.)

Obviously everyone is going to want to use this in full screen at least "Regular" mode so this isn't a fix, but maybe will give Adobe a clue on what to focus on.

Anyone with a retina screen please chime in if you can see a difference with these settings.

N

ncic

Known Participant

yes that settings improves it too

for sure it seems tied to amount of pixels it needs handle for the UI. on a retina display isn't the ui almost up to four times bigger depending on the display setting chosen?

as i wrote in my post from from march 2013 after cs6 release you can notice pan and zoom performance improve when enabling "open illustrator in low resolution" mode (command-i on the app icon, on a mac).

its then almost as it used to be in cs5 and lower versions when panning and zooming. almost!

for me panning and zooming in the long run was so "in the way" in retina mode that i chose working with the retina edge artifacting of low res mode as a trade for snappier navigation.

not at all saying this is the mode you might want to work in on a retina, just that it adds to the theory of UI size/resolution having to do with it.

B

bozogubu

Participating Frequently

Man!! this problem is still not solved. Here's my side of the story.

I just bought a 27" iMac 5K retina(base model). I have the Adobe Illustrator CC2014.1 and the latest version of Yosemite.

All my adobe products work perfectly. Except illustrator. Dragging an artboard in Illustrator is like working on a system with 256mb of ram. It's slugging beyond compare.

My MacBook Air(late 2010) witht the exact same versions of adobe and Yosemite and with less than third of my 5K's configuration handles illustrator like a breeze. Completely stumped by this problem.

My subscription ends in Jan. If it isn't fixed by then, I don't think I can afford to continue as I depend on these things to earn a living.

I'll have to shift my entire eco system somehow. I can use FCP instead of Premiere

Anyone know what's a great substitute for photoshop and illustrator?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Try and set up a new user on that system to see if Illustrator works better then.

B

bozogubu

Participating Frequently

Nope doesn't work.

A

Anonymous537

Participant

On Windows 7, 4-core, 8Gb RAM: My CS5 is very smooth. CS6 and CC are noticeably sluggish whether running 64-bit or 32-bit. CPU and RAM never comes closes to heavy usage.

The minimum requirements for CS5 and CC are the same and both my machines exceed the recommended specs.

Lots of tips on here, but none explain why for me and others side by side on the same machine CS6 is slower and crashes more often. My coworker has a more up-to-date machine and has the same issues.

rcraighead

Legend

I have been paying the CC subscription for well over a year and have documented bugs in CS6 that have yet to be addressed (and never will be). It has soured me on Adobe and their CC subcription rip-off policy. When new versions are rolled out while existing software bugs are ignored, it tells me Adobe is driven more by profits than quality. I continue to use AICS5 partly because it is reliable and I "own" it. If I am forced to cancel my CC subcription I will not be stuck with unusable files.

rama_ai11751598

Community Manager

Hi Ray,

Please send the details of performance issue you face in Illustrator CS6 and CC to sharewithai@adobe.com. Please include your email id that you used in CC subscription.

-Rama

Illustrator Team

T

timkenney

Participating Frequently

I've been fortunate in that Yogesh has reached out after I emailed him directly about the overall slowness of CS6, particularly Illustrator in my case.

Interesting that none of the Adobe engineers seem to be able to reproduce our issues on their machines, isn't it?

Wondering if they work in a "sterile" environment, without the other software running in the background that we have to use as professionals?

In other words, how Real Life are their systems?

A bit disturbed that we have to jump through so many system configuration hoops to get the software to run properly. I don't know of any other professional programs that require: 1) New User Accounts 2) Stopping Web Streaming 3) Turning Off/Clearing "Appearance Attributes." 4) Repairing Permissions on First Run.

These are all indications of a poorly coded platform that doesn't play well with others in a Real World environment. Reminds me of Microsoft trying to own the Web by writing proprietary software that couldn't be viewed.

#just sayin

Tim Kenney

C

crispe123

Known Participant

I've had these problems on my PC and thought hey, maybe there's something iffy about my PC thats causing the issues and I just can't work it out. But 2 weeks ago I purchased a late 2012 iMac with all the top of the line specs that is an extremely similar spec to my PC. The problems that existed on the PC version still exist on the Mac version. Both computers have 32gb of ram, running on SSD and RAID drives, core i7 quads, and GTX 680 video cards.

Turning off Smart Guides helps, but thats really not a solution, its one of the most important, most helpful and most used features Illustrator has released in years. As a Creative Cloud subscriber I'd be happy if they'd just let us choose to download CS5 instead of CS6. Also, it would be great if instead of blowing their funds buying Behance they'd fix their broken software. 'CS7' (but not CS7) likely coming in June I believe, I wonder if it will be improved? Highly doubting it.

A

AmericanGothic

Known Participant

Same here, they cannot reporduce my video lag issue... I will not be using CS7 unless they give me a free copy, and I won't be sending them any more files unless they promise to upgrade me for free.

I would suggest other do the same, otherwise all we are doing is free QC for them without any compensation from the hours of lost productivity. Hit Adobe where it hurts the most: in their wallet, then watch how fast these issues get resolved.

O

OLaRox

Participant

After a couple of days of trial and error, I did something that solved it for me.

Select everything in the AI file
In the appearance panel you'll probalby see a 'Mixed appearance' message
I clicked on the 'Clear appearance' button at the bottom of the panel (the one that looks like a 'no entry' sign.)
The 'Mixed appearance' message dissapears

I though all my effects, drop shadows, and rounded corners would dissapear.

They didn't. Everything still looks the same.

The only change that I realised was that a weird white shape dissapeared from the bottom of some artboards.

A shape that I didn't draw myself.

Now everything is quick again.

Hope this helps some of you out there.

A

Anonymous

Hey, can you share any such file here. This might not apply to all the files. I am really curious to see this performance improvement before and after removing the Mixed apperance attribute.

Y

ykhatriCorrect answer

Participating Frequently

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the Illustrator Engineering Team.

We have been following this thread and the issues discussed here are a cause of concern for us. We have been working closely with most of you either directly or through customer support, and we have been able to fix issues that led to sub optimal performance by following some of these approaches:

1. Creating a new user account.

2. Clearing font cache

3. Dumping personal cache files and repairing permissions

4. Installing latest OS updates.

5. Disabling beam sync

6. Clearing any extra appearance attributes which might have applied to the artwork.

7. Deleting any stray points in the file.

8. Turning off some unnecessary/conflicting processes.

9. Stopping any web streaming.

10. Clearing unwanted mixed appearances

Since performance issues are typically hard to isolate, we would like to work with you individually to understand and isolate your issues. Most of you would have already got an email from an Adobe representative by now, and if not, you can write to us at ‘ShareWithAI@adobe.com’.

Additionally we request you to create a new thread for each issue so that its easier for the user community to find relevant information for their issue.

Looking forward to working with you to isolate these issues.

Thanks

Yogesh

On behalf of Illustrator Engineering Team

S

shanewi11iams

Participant

I have to agree with this as I have the same issue. It stutters and only updates once you stop scrolling. My program is crashing every 5 mins. REALLY DISSAPOINTED.

A

Anonymous

Hey All,

At my workplace we recently switched to CS6. I tried everything I could: exploring possibility of corrupt account, cleared font cache, turned off smart guides, worked in outlines. None of it worked.

Then I found the culprit: live previewing in the following panels (any of them previewing will cause this issue) : Layers panel and Navigator panel. This is why working in outlines didn't even help because the computer re-draws all of your data live in full color for your live previews, thus eating up all your ram.

I find that there is still a memory leak in CS6 but I can live with that flaw. Minimizing/closing these panels seem to have fixed laggy issues in my office, certain key commands not working properly and "possessed" cursors.

Just turn off the panels mentioned above, hopefully you experience a vast improvement in performance. As a precaution, I also keep my following panels minimized when not needed: Artboards, Links, Appearance.

Hopefully this helps you, it certainly has benefitted the office I work at.

45634563545

Inspiring

So pathetic . . .

Why is this not fixed yet? Are you kidding me???

B

blenblen

Participant

Same here. I always found Illustrator a bit sluggish on the Mac compared to Windows but this version is worse. Screen-redraw panning and moving around object is even slower than before. I found out that this 'sluggishness' is also related to how OSX redraws. I use OSX's Quartzsimple utility to disable beam sync which really improved performance in this respect in CS4. Unfortunately it doesn't make as big of a difference in CS6 but it's a bit faster. You might want to give that a try.

Macbook Pro 5.5 / Mac OS 10.6.8 / 8GB Ram

Frank Heller

Inspiring

My experience so far has been that the problem is progressive. Starts out OK and over time it slows to a crawl. Particularly on my large scale industrial design stuff. This really leads me to think this not a Mac redraw issue but rather some sort of memory leak/buffer purging problem. I don't have this issue with CS5.

First rule of beta: "If something failed that used to work, what changed?" To me, this is a classic example of shoving something out the door half baked because of an arbitrary suite release deadline. All the Adobe fiefdoms had to hit the mark ready or not. Some succeeded, some didn't. I'd park AI in the "didn't" category. The thing feels like a beta. And as far as I'm concerned, not ready for prime time.

I've turned back to AI CS5 to get actual real world work done efficiently. I'll wait and see what they come up with for an incremental update.

P

paulzaragoza

Participating Frequently

Yes, you are totally right!! hopefully thet note this and do something about it.

S

shawnssmith

Participant

I was experiencing the same problems - extreme lag on panning, zooming, ect... After turning off the setting "snap to point" and "smart guides" it works like a champ again.

45634563545

Inspiring

And I thought Illy's snaps were problematic (anybody here have experience in AutoCAD or 3D Studio Max? Then you know the difference in snapping functionality quality is massively frustrating). Now it looks like there's some truly wasteful code associated with them. Mere snaps causing display lag?? Come on!

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