Why is layout rendering so slow?

Question

Can't remember if I've asked this before, but I'm working on a project where it's really starting to bite me.

Why is the layout sooooo slow to render?

In my case today, I have a (n admittedly very large-- 16x40") canvas and a map frame of the same size. I'm drawing at a pretty detailed scale for something at that size -- 1:300K. No marginalia yet, and the map itself is pretty complicated. So, I get it, I'm asking Pro to do a lot of detail.

That being said, it's taking 10 minutes to draw or redraw with every. single. change. This is very painful.

I get that Pro is going to struggle the more you throw at it, etc. However, isn't rendering a map frame in the layout basically the same as rendering a Map View at a certain reference scale? My map view is positively zippy by comparison-- I can refresh the entire intended extent with a reference scale set and it takes like 20-30 seconds, instead of several minutes.

So, my question is: What is going on in the Layout view that makes it soooooooooooooooooo sloowwwwwwwwww in comparison to the map view?

This is not the first time I've run into this, nor will it be the last. Layout has serious performance issues once you get bigger than like, 8.5x11" canvas, but even at that size there's a notice difference in performance between it and the map view. Why, and can it be fixed?

Hornbydd · Answer

May not be relevant to your situation but something I've tripped up on that hammers performance is to have a layer displaying unique values, but many thousands of them.

Robert_LeClair · Answer

Although not specific to the layout issue, in ArcGIS Pro 3.7 there's a new Analyze Map Pane you can use to troubleshoot slow layers/issues - you can read more about it here - Evaluating Your Map’s Drawing Performance: The Analyze Map Pane

AlfredBaldenweck · Answer

Fair enough, but again, I don't see how that's meaningfully different from viewing the entire intended extent in Data view with a reference scale applied. That would also draw the entire extent at a specified scale, right?

I ended up getting some improvement by exporting everything to a vector tile package and using that instead. It draws more easily, but I had to know which scale I wanted from the get-go, and any adjustment means I have to do it all over again. Also, vector tile packages don't respect my label weights, so...

I have not bothered to put in a support ticket, although I did mention it in a Voice of the Customer interview a year or two back, and I'm hoping it was one of the reasons Pseudo-draft mode was implemented. In other words, I've been having a problem with this since pro 2.9, at least, and I also mention it on the semi-regular surveys that get sent out. (My general phrasing is something like "please test on a canvas larger than 8.5x11"). To answer your question, am on 3.5 now.

To be fair, I'm also having incredible performance issues with just plain text elements on the canvas for a different layout (11x17). There's a map frame, but it's completely turned off, and then I have 4 text elements. Super laggy trying to add and edit them this morning. My virtual desktop has about 28GB of RAM, which should be plenty.

I mean, for a really fun thing, make a big layout, add a map frame with a map containing a few layers, add a legend, turn off the map frame, then try editing the legend. Takes forever, and gets worse the larger you make the legend. Honestly, I've had similar problems on 8.5x11 canvases, so it's definitely exacerbated by canvas size but not caused by it.

So I guess there are two things going on: 1) Performance is awful even for marginalia and 2) rendering map frames is bad.