Expert: Tom Rouze - 8/29/2005

Question
I'm working on huge illustrator files with photoshop imports,
gaussian blurs and drop shadows. When I work in Illustrator
10.3.3 in 9.2.2 Classic mode, I can increase the memory in
illustrator and swiftly fly through filters and effects. Working
with the same issues in CS in OSX the files take forever to run
through filters and sometimes come up with operation error
messages. Is there some way to increase the memory in CS so
that these program problems happen less frequently?

Answer
Hi Fran,
Well I'll take a shot at this.  OSX requires quite a bit of memory. Check that you have a substantial amount of RAM installed.  Not virtual memory!  Virtual memory can slow you down since you're using your hard drive as RAM.  
If you feel pretty confident that you have enough RAM,  here's a couple things to try.  
1.  Check your scratch disk. Make sure you have enough memory on the hard drive to handle the files without a problem.
2.  Optimize and Defragment your hard disk.  When working on large files every time you change, delete, relocate files you increase the chance that your file is written in fragments meaning its written in various locations on your hard disk.  Accessing that information takes your computer a little longer to find all the components of the file which slows performance.  If you have a large enough hard drive with plenty of empty disk space open then this probably wouldn't apply.
It's still worth optimizing and defragging your disk.  It's pretty easy to do with Norton Utilities.  I think Techtool Pro will work too!
Hope this helps.
Thank you,

Tom