Illustrator 10 w. OSX - memory tweak or clipboard purge?

[Stevil15]

Hey fellow Maccers;

Using Illustrator 10 on a new iMac running OS X.2, the thing seems like a bit of a slug compared to every other prog I use. It doesn't hang, but it is slow and tends to pause a fair bit after it's been running for a while.

1) Is there a way to access memory settings for individual progz on OS X? You could with OS 9. The OSX memory allocations for individual progz (command + i) show up to taunt and mock me, yet can't be changed.

2) Is there a way to purge the clipboard every so often when using Illustrator? The problem seems to crop up after a bunch of "saves" when working on a big Illustrator file.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[Triska]

I'm not a Mac'er, but were compatriots in AI.

Try this:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2a7d6.htm

Also, I have good results in setting the 'scratch' drive (Temp file/swap file) location to a different physical drive... or at least another partition. While this is in W2K, I'm sure Mac has the same setting, if not more. In Prefs > Plugins & Scratch Disks

You might also try reducing the min. number of Undo States saved. (more states are saved beyond the min. if memory permits.)

As for purging the cache... I don't know of any way to do it manually, I think you are right in your suspicions about saving, each of those are a 'History State' to borrow a term from Photoshop (and equal I believe to the size of the file) only in AI there is no palette with which to manage the History !

How much RAM do you have?

Sef.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com

 

[Stevil15]

Thanks for that Triksta! Some helpful info in all of that to be sure! I've made some adjustments to Illustrator and will see how it goes next time I have a big fat file to work on. (And I'm a recent Mac convert, but have used Illustrator on PC platforms in the past).

I also just discovered from other sources that Illustrator 10 on a Mac apparently commits a fair amount of RAM to holding all fonts in a "ready" state - moreso than other design programs. So that can add to sluggish behaviour, it seems. And there's no way to tweak that setting, it also seems.

I wish Adobe had built in the same flexibility with assigning "% space" or RAM to scratch disks with Illustrator, as they do with Photoshop. Also, from a Mac standpoint, the new operating system OS X can't be tweaked as easily to commit more RAM to a program in general - you could easily do that with the now-outdated OS 9. While there is much touting of OS X's ability to better manage memory, I'd still like that feature, to be able to commit more memory to a specific program when dealing with large files.

I'm currently running a new iMac, 1 gig processor with 512 megs of RAM. With all other programs the thing is greased lightening. I may look into the feasability of more RAM soon.

You can never go TOO fast!

Cheers

 

[Triska]

Nope.. You can't...I'm running a 2.4Ghz in a Shuttle XPC with 1Gig of 400Mhz DDR.

BTW. If fonts are nuts in memory in OSX, you can uninstall those you don't use (I make an 'UnLoaded' folder) or better yet, use ATM, unless you REALLY use them.

Also, creating custom Startup files (RGB & CMYK) and deleting all the silly symbols/pattern files that load with every new file helps a lot.

Finally, the fewer palettes you have open the better, If you dock 'em into 2-3 smartly chosen goups, assign keyboard shorts to each and leave only 1 open at a time, it helps. Or memorize all shortcuts, everywhere, and then 'Tab off' all palettes, work in full-screen, and then call me and tell me how you can possibly be so damn cool!

Here are the KeyCuts I laid out:

http://www.elucidesign.com/TEK_examples/Sef's_AI10_Windows.pdf

You can probably figure 'em out for MAC pretty easy...

Sef.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com

 

[Stevil15]

Yep I have the latest version of Suitcase (an Extensis thing) for font management, which seems better than ATM. I'm just now trying to housebreak myself from having all and sundry cool fonts loaded, as I rarely use them except for fun stuff...

The pallet thing was something else I'd heard of too, just recently. Lots of stuff you'd think Adobe would build into power-and-memory mad programs like Illustrator by default...I see a trend developing with a lot of top-end software designers. They seem to assume their clients are buying into their applications with the latest, fastest, gruntiest computers...and so they tangent off into designing software with little or no regard for size or bloatation. To a certain point it's understandable with graphic or a.v. stuff, but I think reigning in the designers and making them think "lean and functional" in concert with "bloated with heaps of way-cool and lots of toys".

I've always hated Corel for that, back in the PC days...the clunky stuff they crank out was always twice or three times the file size to start with (space consumed on your hard drive just to install), and always ran like a fat, blind, three-legged dog in a windstorm compared to Illustrator and Freehand.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

 

[Triska]

Ha! What an image.
Peace.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com