Performance benchmark for ID, PS, AI ...

Report · Jan 26, 2023

For the last few years I wanted to create a tool to test which configuration is best for ID, PS, AI - more / faster RAM, faster CPU / more cores, faster/bigger drive, better GPU, etc.

Now, as I've created extremely powerful tool for ID 😉 I can finally realise my idea 🙂 PC only ...

BUT ... what do you think would be the best set of tasks to maximize workload ?

How may pages ? 1000 - 10000 ? More ? Operations - single page -> spread -> single, move pages, resize pages, move between documents, etc.

How many stories ?

How many documents opened at the same time - book ?

Creating large number of Char/Para Styles ? Apply them, then change their properties - to recompose / reflow text.

Find & Change - text, GREP.

Tables - creating / converting / restyling.

Object Styles - creating / applying / editing.

Images / vectors - what operations - import / export / resizing / duplicating / transformations / effects ?

Layers - in the document and in the linked files - show / hide - then export as JPEG / PDF - kind of simulating multilanguage documents.

Indexing / Hyperlinks.

Package.

...

And as I can connect to PS / AI - what filters and what operations ? Resizing, rescaling, resampling, color conversion, etc ?

Export INDD as JPGs / PDF - whole doc, split into separate pages, by sections, etc.

To minimize number of included files - and make it more reliable - I was thinking about creating base document from the included DOC / TXT file(s) - then export it as PDFs / JPEGs - then use them as vectors and images when importing.

So what do you think would be the best set of steps ?

What operations would be best to test & stress CPU / drive / GPU - if class of GPU have any impact at all - then CPU + drive, etc.

And as document can be opened without showing it - we culd use it to test performance gain when ID doesn't have to refresh the screen.

And each step / section can be timed individually + overall time to complete all the tasks.

As every command you can do manually can be simulated - test would be quite realistic and repeatable.

And I can read machine's configuration so all specs will be easy to compare.

Report · Mar 26, 2023

Simply enough, I've seen ID choke with multiple large images(~8000px) linked in a 70-100 page document. Recently I've had an issue where I'll change the page but it won't update the screen. Probably a driver, but I don't think it will take much.

The real resource hog with InDesign and Illustrator seem to be thumbnails/previews, so with InDesign if you make changes to master pages it will probably be a good test. Since you can change the visibility of Photoshop layers in InDesign, it'd probably be a good cross program test.