Performance

AccurioPro VDP Performance

Performance stats plus tips to help you attain optimal VDP speed!

This page serves to provide a benchmark set of test results that can be used to evaluate AccurioPro VDP output speeds for PDF/VT. In addition, this page also provides some very useful tips for maximizing overall performance for your AccurioPro VDP system. In addition, we have provided the complete list of the hardware and software that we used for our benchmark systems.

First off, it is important to understand that the overall performance for any particular VDP job will be relative to the complexity of the design. Many things affect overall performance, including the use of large and/or variable graphics, complex design elements, or advanced Rules (see the Performance Tips section below for more details).

To demonstrate this, and also to create a performance benchmark for AccurioPro VDP, we put together a simple VDP job, which is a single-page personalized letter from a bank (click for preview). The job consists of a background PDF image, and includes basic variable text information overlayed on top. All of the PDF output files for this test were produced with PDF/VT caching enabled, and the PDF Preset utilized was the Adobe InDesign standard [High Quality Print]. The table below presents the overall output times for producing PDF/VT files.

Record Count Mac (Apple Silicon) Mac (Intel) Windows 10
500 3 sec 6 sec 6 sec
1000 4 sec 9 sec 8 sec
5,000 16 sec 42 sec 40 sec
7,500 25 sec 59 sec 57 sec
10,000 34 sec 1 min 23 sec 1 min 17 sec
15,000 52 sec 2 min 8 sec 1 min 50 sec
20,000 1 min 8 sec 2 min 51 sec 2 min 35 sec
25,000 1 min 29 sec 3 min 43 sec 3 min 25 sec
50,000 2 min 52 sec 6 min 3 sec 5 min 55 sec

These times represent the best possible output speed achievable at the time of testing because the systems utilized had sufficient memory, fast CPU’s, and solid state hard disk drives, all of which contribute to maximizing the overall performance of any VDP system.

All PDF files were saved to the local hard disk drive on the benchmark systems. We do not recommend saving files directly to server volumes or printer hot folders as this can decrease overall performance. If you want to print to a hot folder, we recommend using the PDF Driver Post-Processing option called “Move to Specified Folder”. With this option, you save the PDF file on your local disk in a temporary folder that you create. Then when it is done, AccurioPro VDP automatically moves it to the hot folder you selected.
 

Benchmark Your Own System

A full copy of the benchmark job can be downloaded here if you would like to run these tests on your own system. When you run the test, please do the following:

  1. Download and save the benchmark folder to the local desktop of your computer.
    Try to avoid downloading to a file server volume because having to read and process everything off of a server can slow things down.
  2. Open the benchmark InDesign document (named Benchmark-Job.indd).
    The benchmark job will work with InDesign CC 2019 or newer versions. If you cannot open the benchmark file because you are running an older version of InDesign, then open the IDML version of the file instead (located in the Setup for IDML folder). After opening the IDML file, you must then import the DDF settings for the job. To do this, open the Data Source Definitions dialog, click the Import DDF… button, and then select the file in the Setup for IDML folder named Job Settings.DDF. After importing the settings please save the job as an InDesign document, overwriting the original version of the benchmark document.
  3. Start up an AccurioPro VDP PDF/VT session.
    For the correct settings to use for PDF/VT, please select the preset named Best Performance that is available in the PDF/VT driver dialog window. For even more details about the correct settings to use for PDF/VT, please visit the PDF/VT page from our support knowledgebase.
  4. Select the PDF Preset named [High Quality Print] and save the file into the Output folder.
    Please be sure to save the PDF file to the Output folder, or to any location on your local drive (for best performance, we recommend that you do not save the file directly to a server drive).

You can use any of the provided sample data files. The total output time will be presented in the summary window at the end of the AccurioPro VDP session. Compare the times for your system to the benchmarks provided above. If your times are much slower, you may need to consider a hardware upgrade.

 

Performance Tips

Document and workflow suggestions

Please see the Performance Tips Page in our online knowledgebase for a number of helplful tips related to document setup and workflow modifications that can really improve overall processing times.

Hardware suggestions for maximized output speed

Following are a few suggestions for your computer system that will be sure to maximize the performance of your AccurioPro VDP software. The suggestions below are listed in order of importance (e.g. your hard disk speed is more important than the amount of memory you have installed in your system). Please click here to view the specs for our own benchmark systems.

Faster Hard Disk Speed

Printed output from AccurioPro VDP can be very disk-intensive, and therefore the faster the hard disk that you can provide, the faster your overall output speeds will be. We recommend using a solid-state hard disk (SSD) for the best possible performance, however, if SSD is not an option, please be sure to select a drive that has a speed of at least 7,200 RPM.

Beware of Server Disks

The print processes for AccurioPro VDP are very disk intensive. When creating VDP output files, we recommend not printing directly to server volumes (such as a printer hot folder) as this can slow the process down dramatically. If you want to print to a hot folder, we recommend using the Post-Processing option “Move to Specified Folder” that was described earlier. In addition, you should try to ensure that all files (InDesign document, fixed graphics, variable graphics and database files) are run from the local hard disk drive as well.

Faster CPU Speed

As AccurioPro VDP performs merging operations inside of InDesign, it takes advantage of the speed of the computer’s CPU. The faster the CPU, the faster the software will merge data. Because the CPU speeds on the market change so frequently, our only recommendation is to purchase a computer with the fastest CPU that you can find for your budget.

More Memory

AccurioPro VDP by itself does not require a significant amount of extra memory in order to achieve good performance. In fact, if you have sufficient memory to run Adobe InDesign, and to open and edit your documents without noticeable latency issues, then your system should work well with AccurioPro VDP. However, more memory allows you to run other applications, and may even improve overall system performance, so we always recommend using as much memory on your system as your budget will allow.

How to select the best VDP print format to use for a particular job

So you have a job, and you are wondering which AccurioPro VDP print driver format to use to obtain the best possible performance (both on the desktop, and at the printer). The first thing to do is to determine which VDP file formats your digital print controller can accept (because this may limit your choices). The VDP formats that can be created by AccurioPro VDP include PDF and PDF/VT, Adobe PostScript, and PPML.

Most modern production printers support PDF/VT, and for 99% of your variable data jobs that will be the preferred output format. For older systems that may not support PDF/VT, the PPML format would be the next best choice, and if you cannot print PPML then PostScript may be a good fall-back solution (but be prepared for some slow output because PostScript is not optimized for variable data).

Once you know what your options are, we recommend the following basic guidelines:

  1. Job has Variable Text and/or Variable Images
    If your job uses any Variable Text or Images, then PDF/VT is the best choice. In fact, there is really very little reason to consider any other VDP format unless your printer does not support the printing of PDF/VT files. PPML will also work, but may not be as fast as PDF/VT.
  2. Printer does not support PDF, PDF/VT, or PPML
    If your printer does not support PDF, PDF/VT, or PPML, then use PostScript (and if your printer does not support PostScript, welcome to 1984!)
  3. Job has Variable Text with Transparency
    If your job uses Variable Text that also has some type of InDesign transparency effect applied to it, then select PDF/VT or PPML (PostScript will also work, but it will be much slower because each page will need to be “flattened” due to the transparency effects).
  4. Printer uses a Creo Systems Controller
    For Creo controllers, use PDF/VT or PPML (but not VPS). Many people are still under the impression that on Creo systems, Creo VPS is the only VDP format supported. This is not true, and in fact we have confirmed with the Creo team that PDF/VT and PPML are both fully supported on Creo systems and can run even more efficiently than the original Creo VPS format.