Increase performance to make ArcMap start and run faster

Summary

In some instances, ArcMap may take a long time to start and has poor performance in performing specific tasks.

Procedure

There are several hardware upgrades, system settings, storage setup, tool usage, monitoring, and maintenance routines that can be performed to increase the performance of ArcMap:

Hardware

• Rebooting the machine.
• Ensure the hardware meets the system requirement when installing or upgrading to a new version of ArcMap. Refer to ArcMap: ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.x system requirements for the latest requirements of ArcMap. Alternatively, use the Can You Run It utility to scan a machine before upgrading to the new version.
• Increase the amount of RAM in the machine to recommended minimum amount or higher. Upgrade the video card in the machine, and make sure there is at least 10 GB of remaining free space on the local hard drive.
• Ensure that all hardware drivers are updated. Refer to Microsoft: Update drivers manually in Windows for more information.
• Optimize virtual memory. Refer to How To: Change the operating system's virtual memory settings for more information.

System Settings

• Fix corrupted Windows User Profile accounts. ArcGIS Desktop relies heavily on Windows User Profile, and these can become corrupt. So consider creating a new profile.
• Redirect temporary folders. Refer to Esri Community: Troubleshooting Slow Performance in ArcGIS for Desktop for instructions to redirect temporary folders.
• Rename the corrupted normal templates that contains the user interface customizations. By renaming them, it prompts the software to generate a new, default normal template. Refer to ArcMap: Fundamentals of saving your customizations for more information on normal templates and Esri Community: Troubleshooting Slow Performance in ArcGIS for Desktop for instructions to rename normal templates.
• Change the TMP and TEMP user variables to both have a variable value of C:\TEMP. Refer to How To: Edit an environment variable for more information.
• If ArcGIS Desktop is running in a Citrix XenApp environment, disable the folder redirections at the Windows Server terminal server level to prevent users' home directories from being redirected.
• Defragment all local hard drives on your computer.

Software

• Clear the local display cache in ArcMap. If the cache is retained instead of being cleared from one map to the next, there is a big performance hit. Refer to ArcMap: Managing your local display cache for more information on clearing the local display cache.
• Check for any third-party tools. There are a lot of great third-party extensions out there, but unfortunately, we do not test or certify against them. Some can occasionally cause conflicts, so it is worth uninstalling these to see if the behavior persists.

Service Packs

• Ensure all service packs are up to date. Service packs are found at the Esri Support site. Refer to Problem: ArcMap runs out of memory after using the Trace tool and Bug: When using Feature Service layers in ArcMap, performance is slow when requesting more features in each request to the server for service packs that could improve performance.

Antivirus and Malware

• Temporarily disabling an anti-virus continual scan , as this can cause performance issues in ArcGIS Desktop.
• Adjust an antivirus program to make ArcGIS Desktop run better. Refer to FAQ: How do I troubleshoot ArcGIS Desktop performance issues related to antivirus software (exceptions)? for more information.
• There may be malware affecting the performance of ArcMap. Refer to Problem: ArcMap menus and functions have slow performance after saving or exporting an .mxd file for more information.
• Eliminate as many background programs that are running as possible. Run an anti-spyware application to eliminate any spyware software as spyware degrades the computer's performance.

Data

• Use the MXD Doctor to fix any problematic MXDs. Refer to ArcMap: Using the MXD Doctor utility for more information.
• Whenever possible, set the projection of the ArcMap data frame to the coordinate system of any raster data in the map.
• Export feature classes to a new location for performance issues related to shapefiles, feature classes, or other data.
• Symbol display time affects refresh times of the ArcMap application, and also has a major impact on map export and rendering of images produced by ArcGIS Server and ArcIMS ArcMap Server. Refer to FAQ: How can ArcMap symbology performance be improved and maintained? for more information.
• Large CAD drawings converted to annotations can be slow due to the number of features in them. Refer to How to: Improve performance of large annotation layers in ArcMap for more information.
• The map document layer may contain geometry errors. Refer to Problem: Performance issues when opening a map document for more information.

Storage

• Create connections to directories containing data on the network at the lowest level possible.
• Minimize the number of network connections to the server that are saved in an ArcMap document. A huge performance hit occurs if an MXD contains many network connections.
• Remove old server connections after resourcing MXD layers to change the location ArcMap is pointing to. Refer to Problem: After resourcing SDE map layers, MXDs are slow to open for more information.

Tools

• Clear out the geoprocessing history. Refer to Problem: Performance issues with ArcGIS for Desktop 10.x for more information.
• Under certain conditions, there may be a delay when opening ArcMap with Arc Hydro tools installed. Refer to How To: Improve performance when opening ArcMap with Arc Hydro Tools installed for more information.
• Shapefile that does not have a spatial index slows the snapping of features when using the Measure tool. Refer to Problem: Slow performance of the Measure tool when working with a large shapefile for more information.

Monitoring Tools

• The PerfQAnalyzer tool can run as an ArcMap add-in or as a standalone application. This tool is useful for performance investigation and can be used in conjunction with a database trace. Refer to How To: Calibrate ArcGIS performance: Create editing scripts and capture edit times for more information.