Input lag / UI delay on Windows across Adobe apps — not hardware related

[KiNTO-Mo]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working with Adobe Creative Cloud for over 10 years, and I’ve noticed a persistent input lag and UI delay on Windows affecting InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects.

Even on high-end PCs, i'm on laptop proart p16 (2025) and strong desktop. Typing letter by letter, clicking text boxes, or interacting with objects shows a noticeable delay. On Mac, the same workflows are instant, proving this is a Windows.

I hope Adobe can acknowledge this and prioritize a fix.

Thanks.

[BobLevine]

The first thing you might want to do is take a screen recording so we can see it. I'm on Windows 11 here, and I'm not seeing anything like that.

[KiNTO-Mo]

Thank you for your response.

It’s more of a general feeling, but also an objective observation after years of using Adobe apps across different laptops and desktops, both on Windows and Mac.

After some research, it seems that certain fonts do not perform well and cause very excessive lag, while others work fine without any issues. I’m wondering if it’s possible to identify problematic fonts—whether they are Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, or others—directly through InDesign or via Windows, so they can be pinpointed and avoided?

(I don’t have any antivirus or additional software running; this is a fresh Windows installation.)

[Alexandre Becquet]

After a screen recording, like @BobLevine asked check if something is running with a lot of ressources like antivirus or update or something like that.
I'm not on windows but if we can find the solution.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hello @KiNTO-Mo,

Thank you for sharing this, and I apologize for the inconvenience. Please follow the recommendations provided by the experts and let us know if they are helpful. To further eliminate the possibility of interference from any third-party applications, it would be beneficial if you could also attempt to launch the Adobe applications in Windows safe mode by following the steps in this link https://adobe.ly/4pNnxUl and let us know if the lag persists there. While you are testing, please monitor the Task Manager to observe CPU, GPU, or memory usage and verify if the usage spikes only when Creative Cloud applications are running. Additionally, please confirm whether you are facing this issue in a specific Adobe application or across all of them.

I look forward to your update.

Abhishek

[KiNTO-Mo]

thank you for your response !

I’ve already tested this issue across multiple Adobe applications (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects) on different high-end Windows machines, and I observe the lag consistently across all of them, while the same workflows on Mac are okey...

I understand your recommendation to try Windows 11 Safe Mode, and I can do that. However, I suspect that a significant part of the lag is caused by certain fonts, especially complex Unicode/multi-script fonts like Noto Sans JP. Other fonts perform fine, which seems to confirm this.

While testing, I have monitored CPU, GPU, and memory usage, and they are well below saturation, suggesting that the lag is not due to hardware limitations or system load, but likely related to font rendering and application performance.

(I have no antivirus or third-party software installed; this is a fresh Windows installation.)

[Anubhav M]

Hello @KiNTO-Mo,

Thanks for sharing your detailed insights. I have forwarded this to the product team for further investigation and will update this thread as I have more info.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or require assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Anubhav