This is nothing compared with PADS Layout that software cost around 7000$ and it glitch like a soft from 1995, it is possible this is also a OS limitation in kernel or throttle on purpose to slow down the work.

Please, Adobe! Speed it up!!

It is unthinkable that a young software like Affinity Designer is better in many, many, aspects compared to a historical software like ILLUSTRATOR.
You notice the speed and reliability and accuracy of Affinity.
- Better CPU, Ram and GPU exploitation ...
- Better snap on the tracks and maximum precision of the design.
- Management of larger drawing boards, Huge !!
- Opening of a vast number of files (eg freehand, coreldraw etc.)
- Quick management of the paginated (AI stops every two seconds)
- Lighter files
and I could go on ...

ADOBE WAKE UP !!!

I don't thing the corporations are interested in speeding up your work cause the more and slow you work the more you will remain subscribed to suck from you money, with latest updates from different manufactures related to those vulnerabilities (forgot their names) our PC's are getting slower but in reality those are not vulnerability but artificial problems created on purpose so we buy new hardware.

If anyone is in any doubt as to whether this is possible, bring up a CPU performance monitor and then try opening a large file in Affinity Designer. Zoom in and out, move things around, keeping an eye on activity across the CPU cores as you do so...

Hmmmmm, Adobe?

My manager "upgraded" to a Mac that should have technically performed better than his old Macbook from pre2011 did on Illustrator, except, it ended up being just as bad. After that, and one upgrade cycle, we ordered the next range of iMacs that were much better than his "latest" mac, and should have performed better with Illustrator. They do not.

Thinking it was an Apple issue, but after reading this it is obvious where the problem is.

Looking at Adobe's virtual monopoly, there's the proof that competition drives innovation.

No real competition = Adobesaurus.

Yes please, rewrite the whole program if you have to. It is not like it is cheap or free. We need tools that work with our hardware, we can't afford both adobe suite and upgrading our systems every year because illustrator fail to utilize more cores.

Last post in August. Now Intel's 8th generation CPUs with even more cores are out. There is so much competition right now to enhance computing power - cloud based rendering, CUDA and whatnot. And Adobe has... ANIMATED TOOL TIPS

And please, lovely people here, don't call professional software like PS, Ai or ID "apps", Adobe might think you talk about their mobile substitutes they wasted all our CC subscription money on.

I'll just add my thoughts while I wait for beachballing Illustrator to finish what it's doing. Please focus on core Illustrator like multi-core processing instead of animated tooltips Adobe!

Competition will go ahead. fix this over a not usable stupid puppet wrap

I couldn't agree more. The performance of Illustrator is horrendous. I have a feeling it's due to the program's dated Postscript roots, but I'm not an developer so that's just an educated guess. I think that for this to work they'll have to rebuild Illustrator from the ground up - if that's the case, I'd normally say, "cut them a break" but with the premium price tag on their software Adobe really has no excuse at this point. Just comparing the performance between Illustrator and Serif's Affinity Designer really shows Illustrator's age. If Adobe hasn't already begun working on this they shouldn't be surprised if they start loosing customers in droves in the coming years.

@adriana, since I don’t do video work and primarily 2D design work, I went with the best iMac that I could. With the top i7 processor, 32 GB of RAM, a 1 TB SSD, I was in the $3500 range. The base iMac Pro starts at $5000.

Depending on what apps you use. I use Adobe XD as much as I use Illustrator. It’s amazing how much faster and smoother XD is.

Also, I bought mine from expercom.com. I upgraded the RAM through them and saved a ton of money, FWIW.

I’m not a good one to answer this, but since I outlined the specs for the Mac I’m using, I’ll offer the mea culpa that I always but as much power as I can afford. I can hope that someday Adobe will fix AI, but in the meantime, we do all our video work in Final Cut with a bunch of FxFactory modules, and FCP leverages multi-threading extremely well.

Hi guys, if you were a Surface Pattern Designer using Illustrator, of course, what would be your choice of specs on the iMac Pro if upgrading from a PC. In view of this discussion here. is it worth it to go for the most you can afford to make the work smoother and faster or would i be wasting my good money. Thanks!

@Steve:
Thanks for writing this. I have the exact same issue as you. Converting text to paths in large situations, or creating very complex compound paths would leave Illustrator useless for what feels like eternity.

Just looking at Activity Monitor, Illustrator is pegged at 100% (I have the highest end, non iMac Pro with an i7/ 32GB of RAM and an 8GB graphics card). That 100% only represents one of my four cores.

@DouglasSteel: on the Mac, I use iStats, which clearly shows the compute load across cores. Regardless of a tool's idiosnchracies, when it never uses more than 100% of the computer's processing power, it's not multi-threading and by definition, not operating as efficiently as possible. Waiting an additional 45 seconds every time I render an effect on a vector adds up when you do a hundred a week. I'd buy the argument if multi-threading were a new technology, but it's not, and Adobe, for whatever reason, hasn't kept up with the technology.

Happy to hear of your experience on an 8 year old MBP, but considering a lack of issues at your end doesn't negate the issues others are having. A comparison from one user/platform to another provides no meaningful insight unless the compute tasks are identical and the rest of the configuration somewhat similar. And I have a brand new iMac Pro, with 18 cores and 128GB of RAM along with high end GPU, and to see a beachball when I render simply isn't acceptable.

How are you testing the CPU tasks? Bear in mind the tools have their own idiosyncracies and are not written for every architecture. If you've got a single 2GHZ core operating with a decent GPU and memory, I'd suggest you might look at the supporting frameworks and OS in general. I've never had an issue on an 8 yr old macbook pro.

Please upgrade, Illustrator. If it weren't for MaPublisher, I would have found something else long ago. Multiple seconds to simply move one vertex, ridiculous. Frequent restarts to clear the cache in hopes of better performance, quick-key actions are lost because it can't keep up. You all have to do something. If you want a vid to record how slow is it, let me know. Or maybe I should post it on the web ...?

I'll add my 2¢ here. As I'm waiting for Illustrator to render the task of using the shape builder tool. I have a quad core i7 and it takes forever for Illustrator to crunch the data, using only one core.

God knows we are paying enough each month to pay for this to be done... Without yearly update sales incentives, I fear Adobe will trot along like this for a few years until the heal snapping gets too painful.