Make Illustrator multi threaded on CPU
Illustrator performance is awful, its slow and lumbering at all but the most basic operations. It is bound to only a single cpu thread which is ridiculous now in an age of multi core and multi thread CPU's and it has been this way for many years. It cannot handle background tasks and is completely out of parity in function and performance with other Adobe software such as photoshop and inDesign.
Adobe Illustrator's Multithreading Journey Begins!
Dear Illustrator Community,
I'm thrilled to announce that we've embarked on an exciting journey to bring multithreading capabilities to Adobe Illustrator. This significant undertaking will enhance performance and responsiveness across various aspects of the application.
While this is a complex process that will take some time to fully implement, I wanted to share our progress so far.
Our Approach
We've strategically begun by focusing on the most computationally intensive operations—those that typically take more time and block the main thread, resulting in slower response times while you work. By moving these operations to separate threads, we aim to significantly improve your overall experience with Illustrator.
It's important to note that you may see more noticeable impact in some areas than others initially. However, we want to assure you that this is just the beginning, and we will continue this journey to bring improvements across the entire application.
What We've Accomplished So Far
We've already moved a few areas to multiple threads:
- Periodic document back-up
- Snapping guide generation
- Rasterization (currently for JPEG, PNG, and TIFF formats)
- Thumbnail generation for layers
- Linked/Embedded image (jpg, png, tiff) handling
What to Expect
These improvements will lead to more responsive and faster performance in several key areas:
- Placing multiple images
- Embedding linked images
- Object > Rasterize
- Export to PNG format
- Document opening with heavy linked images
- Simultaneous placement and drag-and-drop of multiple linked/embedded images (JPEG, PNG, and TIFF files)
We're committed to enhancing your Illustrator experience, and this is just the beginning. While the full implementation will take time, we're excited about the improvements already in place and those yet to come.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue this journey. Your patience and support are greatly appreciated as we work to make Illustrator faster and more efficient than ever before.
Try It Now in Beta!
We're excited to announce that these multithreading improvements are available for you to try right now in our Beta builds. You can access these builds through the Creative Cloud Desktop App:
- Open the Creative Cloud Desktop App
- Navigate to the "Beta apps" section
- Look for the Illustrator Beta and download it to experience these performance enhancements firsthand
We encourage you to try out the Beta version and share your feedback with us.
Thank you for being part of our community!
Best regards,
Adobe Illustrator Team
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Nikolas Karampelas commented
@Oskar I'm afraid the superior per core performance will be another reason for Adobe not to care.
In PC we can only get this level of single core performance only from Ryzen 5600X and abode for now.
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Oskar commented
One thing I wonder is if there will be or is already multi core support with the new M1 (and upcomngin M2?) support that they just released.
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Nikolas Karampelas commented
Ah you guys must be new here :P I don't expect it to be addressed before 2027, maybe even longer.
At least if they don't care about illustrator they can lower the price to something like 5$ per month... -
ihax-it admin commented
Under review since September 12, 2017?! Obviously, this isn't a priority over building horrible ARM applications that mess up other platforms.
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Philipp Jordan commented
This thread is under review since what? 2017? Are you kidding me.
2017 there were already processors which could handle 8 parallel processes, we have 2021 now and the processors can handle 32 parallel processes easily.
But I have to wait over night to render out some assets. Watching my task manger reminds me of German road construction, 1 guy is working and the other 15 are watching peaceully. At least I can watch render a movie on the other processors in the mean time. -
Pedro Meca commented
Updated system to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X + Gigabyte B550 Vision D + 64 Gb 3200mh memory + Samsung SDD 950 Pro + Reinstall windows 10 system and Adobe software and Illustrator is still as slow as ever. My recommendation: Do not update your system if you want to increase the speed. My old system: X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC + AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X - Memory Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 / 3000MHz 32GB
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Eric Bryant commented
Oh my lord. I just downloaded Affinity Designer to try it out. It's fantastic. While it's definitely not as feature rich as Illustrator, it performs SOOOO much better that it's worth not having the shortcuts that those Illustrator features provide. It's clean and modern and FAST. It makes Illustrator look like a really antiquated piece of software. What a shame.
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whstlblwr commented
Whilst it may seem that Adobe is ignoring this topic, in fact, some of the latest versions of Illustrator appear to have some multithreading capabilities for certain tasks. I noticed when I applied a blur to a vector image with 1000s of complex paths by mistake, the app became unresponsive, so I checked Activity monitor and Illustrator was utilising all 4 cores. I tested some other tasks like saving a massive file and 3d filters but they still only used one core..
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nicky commented
Nikolas Karampelas actually Affinity is already 85% better than Ai!
If in Affinity they implement a dozen things that are wrong or not yet in Ai, the passing en masse is almost safe.Better type of guide management, selection channels view, overprint, circle design passing through 3 points, shape builder, script extensions, etc. and bye bye Illustrator.
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Nikolas Karampelas commented
We have a saying here for when you have the animals chained on the cart they won't go anywhere.
Same with adobe, they believe they have us chained on illustrator because it is an industry standard by now, but they forget that even quark xpress was an industry standard and failed to deliver and ultimately lost to indesign.
I stopped using illustrator once I started my freelance career, it just doesn't worth the cost now that I'm asked to pay this myself and at the same time the only way for it to work better is for me to pay even more money to buy newer and newer and newer hardware with little improvements because the rest of the world have moved on with multicore and GPU computing and the per core improvements are just a small cog of any machine now.
The only reason I'm here complaining is that I really want this program to improve and even return using it if it get better (or I don't know, stay like this and reduce the price and I could keep it around for smaller things?), I don't want my years of experience with illustrator to go to the way of the Adobe Flash.
That being said I make my money with affinity right now and as long as I can export PDF files for printing nobody complains for anything.
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Andy commented
Nikolas, I understand your comment and I'm right with you. This is obviously a hot topic reaching right to the foundations of our daily work and it is indeed a black/white request. However they must have 'reasons'.
If Adobe choose not to implement, then that's their decision, we can always vote with our cash, perhaps that is what it will take? But perhaps product inertia brings sufficient income?
This is an interactive forum which Adobe created for discussion and is read by many of their most loyal, invested and experienced users, it's reasonable to assume that the Adobe product team also read it.
They have a perfect opportunity to understand why we need this (if indeed they actually have any difficulty in doing so) or to state why it is not to be. I don't see any competitive reason why they would not engage publically, the competition are already ahead on this. All Adobe have which keeps me a customer is the .AI file format (and using Affinity, I'm working on changing that).In short, I'm astonished that they appear do not wish to comment/discuss on this request and the question remains "Why do they leave this idea in plain sight for 4 years without comment? "
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Nikolas Karampelas commented
Andy there is nothing to discus with adobe, they just need to do something and make illustrator multithreaded and add some serious GPU computing. Plain simple request, everybody else have done this already and they don't even have adobes resources.
Affinity added GPU computing in the last version and it is literally flying with the most basic GPUs.
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Andy commented
Still the 5th -(Actually the 3rd, if completed ideas are ignored) most popular suggestion and one which will assist making some more popular ideas faster and more workable.
This idea has been under review since 2017. Could Adobe not comment on this? I'm sure we could enter into a meaningful dialogue if they wish to engage.
Meanwhile beta versions seem to be published regularly with other new features, all of which add in some way to the workload of a single core.
Since my earlier posts I have purchased and been using Affinity on the jobs Illustrator cannot handle. I'm someway along with various users and suppliers persuading them to use Affinity where editing of complex files is required.
If we have difficulties with Illustrator running slowly, then so do our customers and colleagues. At some point the industry will have to change. -
VincentvE commented
Sure it doesn't happen overnight like magic.
But both Intel and AMD released their first dual cores in 2005. I had a quad core in 2007... Its 2021... This shouldn't even be a topic. Adobe should have implemented multi threading ages ago. There is simply no excuse for being this late with it. -
MM commented
We need multicore support. I understand that such things don't just happen like magic. At the same time, to pay such a monthly premium (a lot of money for some us) and still experience the same lag problems on even the most beastly machines is beyond ridiculous.
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Oliver Malms commented
Just ask the guys at Serif, how to make a fast, responsive, modern design-app... Come on Adobe - it’s 2021!
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Alex commented
Adding another voice to the crowd. There is no excuse for any application being single threaded when multiple, if not dozens, is the norm nowadays. Since Adobe CC is productivity based and an income generator for many, it is likely to be run on workstation class machines and yet the way these apps utilise available resource is from the 90's. Shame on you Adobe. Use more cores. Use more GPU power. Use more RAM. We have the hardware and your software is the bottleneck.
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Anonymous commented
Why is there no comment from Adobe on this? This has been an issue for YEARS now, and is so obvious now that PC's have so many cores.
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Nikolas Karampelas commented
All in all I think the bigger problem is the subscription. If they had to ask for our money for each update like the old times, they should have something to show to us to make use pay again.
Now that the money flows no matter what, they don't care. -
Neff commented
I just hope the next Updates of Affinity will make Illustrator so obsolete, that they HAVE TO completly rebuild it from the ground.