Newer, faster, better, stronger
I’m currently working on a large and detailed map for a new BBC project, which involves producing a large and detailed map of Glasgow in Adobe Illustrator 10. Now I love Illustrator, and use it extensively every day, even though it can be a bit twitchy now and then (I’ve learned to save regularly).
The problem is, the image I’m creating at the moment is already over 2.1Mb (most images I produce in Illustrator top out at about 700Kb), and it is only about half finished. Illustrator is already starting to get really sluggish, despite the fact that I have over 2Gb of RAM in an 867MHz Dual Processor G4, so things can only get worse as the file grows; I’ve had one “unexpected quit” today when trying to paste a large selection into the file.
It is becoming clear that I need something faster to work with, be it software or hardware. I’ve already priced up a replacement Powermac on the Apple Store, and that comes to over £1600 before I add the extra hard drive space and RAM that I need to match my current setup.
The cheaper option is to upgrade to Illustrator CS, which I believe runs faster on Mac OS X. This would certainly be less of a strain on my bank balance. I’m going to install the Illustrator CS Tryout when I have a chance, but if anyone has any anecdotal evidence of improved performance, or other reasons to upgrade, please let me know in the comments.