Probably the most important thing for Adobe to sort out

This really need to be done. Especially in the time multiprocessing is going to be more and more.

TBH I love Illustrator embracement of GPU rendering

Yes, multithreaded processes, and background tasks, e.g., being able to save or export one document then switch to another, or continue working on a different task.

As new computers started to increase threads, rather than single thread performance, Illustrator stopped improving in performance (relatively speaking).

It's because it's not a multi-threaded app. That makes it way behind the curve.

There are some scenarios (such as the pattern making/editing tool) that absolutely halt to an unusable crawl if you do anything interesting with it. I believe it would be greatly helped by multithreading.

I'm probably not the first to mention this, but here's the annoying part: In GPU mode, performance is (usually) great! In CPU mode, it's more than horrible*. What's the problem then? GPU mode completely messes up colour display, with colour being one of the most important tools of a designer. Since this issue started, it has become increasingly cumbersome and error-prone to design visual identities in Illustrator.

Following Apple, Adobe seems to be less and less focused on quality control for the professional market.

*Macbook Pro i9 32GB 2018

The Kristina comment is spam. They are not from Adobe. You can tell this from the HP Support link in the comment. Not to mention the same comment was made by them on several other threads.

Please spend some of our subscription dollars on hiring better engineering resources. Can not imagine a giant technology company not having people who cannot do it. Even small software utilities make use of full processing power of my imac pro.

This subject is very interesting to me as I create banners for our company either for events like our fair, home shows all over California, and other places.

The largest I have done is a 15' x 6' (or 4.572m x 1.8288m, why? That is what they wanted. It is for roofing, solar, leafguard, and solatube. 300/cmyk. 70% is vector graphics and text, the 40% is large images of the products on houses. which were embedded the first time i sent it to the printer but the file was only 214MB. uploaded to google drive then they grabbed it.

the next time I did it, I unbedded them, sent the four 5mg images separately and sent the ai file which was no bigger than 32 mb.

Am I doing something wrong?

10:1 was just an example. Use the smallest that will produce acceptable results.

Here is an informative discussion.

https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/487/what-resolution-should-a-large-format-artwork-for-print-be

Daniel, if you change your working dpi: Effects/Document Raster effects.../100 ppi Your life is going to be a whole better in wide format.

For interior wall signage/tradeshow I personally stick to 300, but that never gets to the physical sizes of exterior.

In this case I re-saved the AI with 'separate AI file for each artboard' checked. So the biggest single file i sent through the RIP was 2GB. It took about 2 mins to send to the printer via ethernet.

I agree that 300dpi is overkill for a rooftop sign, but often I will do interior wall prints in shops which are 2.4m high and anywhere from 2 - 8m long, so they need to be 300dpi. Working at scale 10:1 scale and then upsizing it in the RIP software is perfectly fine for 100% vector artwork, although not really necessary because the file size is small enough that the save time is bearable. Working at scale with embedded raster images would mean my 300dpi embedded PSD files would be printing at 30dpi.

Saving large files isn't the only thing that takes ages because the cpu isn't utilised efficiently. 3D effects, complex blur effects, rasterizing and transparency flattening can also take 1 - 5 minutes at 20% cpu load.

Work in scale and print to intended viewing distance. ie, Billboards are printed at 10 DPI with printers capable of 600 DPI. A huge misconception is making the files 1:1, most RIP software will assist you at making scaled art (lets say 10:1) into 1:1, etc. A high quality 10:1 will print just as good as a 1:1 for most cases. I'd be more worried about pushing a 5gb file through a RIP software then I am .Ai. How long does that take you to send to the printer?

I uploaded a screenshot of the file's workspace so you can see why it's not really appropriate to use a separate file for each artboard. The 20mm bleed overlaps the adjacent artboards in order to allow for any discrepancy between the printed size and the ACP panel size.

dmgdesign.com.au/workspace.png

I agree with @Steve Adobe Illustrator does seem to be under-performing compared to other programs I run that also deal with large files. While the tips & tricks some have posted are useful in many use cases they do not address all use cases and do not fix the problem of an under-performing application that user pay for year after year.

Yeah.. but its a really cool cupholder!!

@Mike is spot on!

Regardless of other tricks/techniques/approaches discussed here, all of which might help, this thread is about multi-threaded processing, and I have 18 cores and most sit idle while processing complex vectors. This is an illustration (pun intended) of where technology has advanced but the software lags (way, way, way) behind.

For what Adobe charges us to "subscribe" to a product that keeps adding incremental features, but doesn't fix the engine is like worrying about a cupholder on the Ferrari when its engine is struggling to fire on all cylinders.

Daniel, you need to to set your raster effects down 100 ppi. 600 is not for large format. 300 dpi is for less than a meter of intended viewing distance.

That's the only reason you're getting those huge file sizes and it is not improving the quality of your rooftop sign design.

You can now link ai files inside illustrator files so that you wouldn't need to even touch Id. Have a composing ai linking to all of the ai/psd assets.

But whatever your workflow adobe should be utilizing multi core CPUs in Illustrator. I have 16 cores that are begging to be pushed.

oh.. and the printer's standard quality setting is 600dpi, but unless its a sign/print which will be visible at close range I usually export raster images at 300dpi.