Make ArcGIS Pro Faster (Benchmarked by ArcMap)

JeffBishop

Simple idea.

GeoNet is flooded with complaints of how slow ArcGIS Pro is.

64Bit Architecture was supposed to bring speed.

Simple operations such as opening, saving, selecting, etc are sloooow.

Geoprocessing takes forever and makes my PC sound like it's going to fly.

I have compared the performance between Pro on my workstation grade laptop to my crappy admin laptop using Map and Map wins out solidly on almost everything.

Pro has a nice UI and flow to it, but suffers from MAJOR performance issues on even the most powerful of machines.

Working with local datasets has also not seemed to help at all.

For reference, my workstation running pro has:

8 core (16 Threads) Xeon 2.4 GHZ

32 GB of RAM

NVIDIA Quadro RTX300

KoryKramer · ‎08-20-2021

Based on the strong support for this idea as well as feedback from other channels, a number of performance and productivity improvements were made in ArcGIS Pro 2.8. Some of the key improvements are highlighted in the What’s new in ArcGIS Pro 2.8 help topic and video. Other resources developed as a result of monitoring and listening to this idea are the Pro Performance Assessment Tool (PAT) and the Troubleshooting Performance Issues in ArcGIS Pro document – see below.

While the improvements noted above will positively impact users who were experiencing problems in the areas where performance was specifically addressed, performance issues can be complex, with a number of contributing factors. We acknowledge that ArcGIS Pro 2.8 will not remedy every suboptimal performance issue that users could potentially encounter, and as such, 2.8 may not resolve a specific issue you may be experiencing.

If you have not yet checked your computer’s ability to run ArcGIS Pro to see if you meet at least the minimum requirement, please do that as a first step. You can access that service from the system requirements page.

Once you know that your machine meets at least the minimum requirement, you could run the ArcGIS Pro Performance Assessment Tool (PAT) to see where your machine falls in the range of typical results. Read more about PAT and get the download here.

Whether the machine meets the minimum system requirements and how it performs when running PAT are good indicators to understand the performance you can expect to achieve when running ArcGIS Pro. If after upgrading to 2.8, working through the above system requirements check, and running PAT you are still encountering a performance problem, you can work through Troubleshooting Performance Issues in ArcGIS Pro.

Support for this idea has been valuable to sharpen our general focus on Pro performance with major improvements delivered in ArcGIS Pro 2.8. Moving forward, if you have specific workflows where you feel application performance to be suboptimal, or if you can demonstrate a disparity between ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro, please contact Technical Support so that we can understand and document the issue and have it assessed by the development team when necessary.

Thank you

Anonymous User · ‎09-22-2021

I'm running 10.8 and it takes long enough for the "Apply Symbology From Layer" geoprocessing tool to load and populate fields for me to come over here, find this thread, and write a reply. Did something miss the mark?

This tool should be a shortcut to editing symbology, but it takes less time to go make all of the setting changes again...

KoryKramer · ‎09-28-2021

Hi @Anonymous User Sorry that you're seeing an issue with that tool. By 10.8 I assume you're referring to ArcGIS Pro 2.8, is that correct?

Have you worked through the Hardware Check section of Troubleshooting Performance Issues in ArcGIS Pro just to ensure that there is no problem with the hardware?

I realize that you posted about a week ago - are you still seeing a performance issue with the Apply Symbology From Layer tool? How long does it take for the tool to complete? Are there a large number of symbol classes that you're working with?

Getting some details could help us run some comparisons, but if specific troubleshooting is needed, it may be necessary to work with Technical Support.

Thank you.

DarrylAlbert · ‎09-29-2021

I've commented on this thread in the past, I read the non-sense ESRI writes here. I'm tired of it, the software, the ESRI non-sense. This software is a joke, it's awful. It's too bad Jack doesn't have a competitor, ESRI is ripe for a beating.

Anonymous User · ‎09-29-2021

@KoryKramer - I haven't followed the performance troubleshooting, as I can confirm that my computer has sufficient computing power to run a whole suite of other GIS, 3D modelling, and CAD drafting programs, including statistical analysis of 2D and 3D data sets.

I did some further troubleshooting of this problem and the tool is far speedier when I perform the operation in a new map with none of my online data sources. I'm not much of a programmer, but this suggests to me that there is some sort of verification of each of these sources happening before the list of available layers can be populated? Couldn't there be some more efficient way of holding a layer list in memory that does not have to be verified every single time I need to select a layer? I would even be willing to sacrifice speed in the event that I did happen to select an online data source (although not the minute-and-a-half it was taking per symbol transfer), if it didn't take this long EVERY time I tried to copy symbols while committing the cardinal sin of having background data in my map.

On top of this, my purpose for creating the locally hosted layers and copying the symbology I had already applied to my online maps was my discovery that I was not able to take the public data sources offline because of publishing settings. It seems like this is probably a widespread problem, as many data sources likely were not published with offline Field Maps use in mind, significantly limiting the resources that can be used in that tool. There doesn't seem to be much purpose in requiring that switch to be flipped just to take a tablet offline for field work, why require data publishers to make this extra effort? Having to publish it myself in order to take it temporarily offline completely undermines the benefits of syncing with an agency-managed resource. We might as well go back to mailing shapefiles on thumb drives.

Considering that ESRI is the apparent driver of the increasing adoption of web portals and ArcGIS Servers, it does not make sense that the use of these services should require these extra steps or render the software into molasses...

epoole · ‎09-29-2021

"Couldn't there be some more efficient way of holding a layer list in memory that does not have to be verified every single time I need to select a layer? I would even be willing to sacrifice speed in the event that I did happen to select an online data source (although not the minute-and-a-half it was taking per symbol transfer), if it didn't take this long EVERY time I tried to copy symbols while committing the cardinal sin of having background data in my map." 100% agree!

How about just the simple functionality of being able to have the same data locations available in each project without having to re-invent the wheel every time I start a new project!?!?! You want a time waster, remapping every path every time you start a new project is ridiculous...

KoryKramer · ‎09-29-2021

Hi @epoole Please read Migrate folder, database, and server connections from ArcGIS Desktop to ArcGIS Pro

Specifically https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/projects/project-favorites.htm and https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/projects/manage-project-favorites.htm for how favorites work in ArcGIS Pro. Hopefully setting those up will alleviate this pain point.

epoole · ‎09-29-2021

@KoryKramer I ended up using a project template to get around the issue, the links you provided appear to provide another solution, thank you for that. I still have to ask why this was not functionally the same as ArcMap (load the data source once and it subsequently carried over), it seems to be an extraneous and unnecessary extra step a user has to figure out and frankly its frustrating when something that worked a certain way in a previous version now does not display the same behaviors in Pro. While not directly a "speed" issue, it defiantly impacts production and time needed to relearn, though I saw the same issues with the migration from ArcView 3.x to ArcGIS.

KoryKramer · ‎09-29-2021

I'm glad the links will help! As for making Pro exactly like ArcMap/ArcCatalog, we learned quite a lot over the years and it isn't always ideal to have every connection that you've ever made for any project persisted in ArcCatalog/Catalog window. One might find it frustrating to sift through that long list of connections, or having to disconnect items that are old or are from a project they're no longer working on.

Given Pro's project architecture, the concept is that connections should be relevant to the project at hand. But if a user chooses, they can have every connection added to every project created. With Favorites, though, you sort of have the best of both worlds where everything you might ever want to access can be stored in your Favorites, but you only add specific items from Favorites to the project that you actually need to work with. That should mean less searching around and sifting through irrelevant connections in the Catalog pane.

Anyway, this other blog from a few years ago tries to get at my explanation above. https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/data-management/data-management/arcgis-pro-tips-this-might... Again, hope it helps!

KoryKramer · ‎09-29-2021

Thank you for the additional details on the tool situation @Anonymous User

It would still be good to get some specific details in terms of the number of layers you have in the map and exactly where you see the lag - i.e. is it in populating the Symbology Layer dropdown?

(Side note: There is this idea to filter out the layers presented to only those that are valid input. That would be nice! Apply Symbology From Layer Validation - Esri Community )

Or the time to execute the tool? From your latest comment, it seems like maybe both?

How many layers are in the map? Here is a quick test that I just did in ArcGIS Pro 2.8.3. There are 30 layers from ArcGIS Online. The tool's dropdown list is responsive and it took 0.21 seconds to execute.

Is your workflow substantially different from the above? Are you working with hundreds of layers?

We are interested in understanding your specific situation, but we will need the reproducible case. If you're able to share a project package and steps that clearly demonstrate the issue, please share those with me at kkramer@esri.com. Otherwise, you can work with Technical Support to troubleshoot the issue.

Thank you!