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Visual Studio performance tips and tricks

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Visual Studio performance recommendations are intended for low memory situations, which may occur in rare cases. In these situations, you can optimize certain Visual Studio features that you may not be using. The following tips are not intended as general recommendations.

Note

If you’re having difficulty using the product because of memory issues, let us know through the feedback tool.

Use a 64-bit OS

If you upgrade your system from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version, you expand the amount of virtual memory available to Visual Studio from 2 GB to 4 GB. This enables Visual Studio to handle significantly larger workloads, even though it is 32-bit process.

For more information, see Memory limits and Use /LARGEADDRESSAWARE on 64-bit Windows.

Tip

Visual Studio 2022 on Windows is now a 64-bit application. This means you can open, edit, run, and debug even the biggest and most complex solutions without running out of memory. To learn more, see both the Visual Studio 2022 vision and Visual Studio 2022 Preview 1 blog posts.

Disable automatic file restore

Visual Studio automatically reopens documents that were left open in the previous session. This can prolong the times it takes to load a solution by up to 30% or more, depending on the project type and the documents being opened. Designers like Windows Forms and XAML, and some JavaScript and typescript files, can be slow to open.

Visual Studio notifies you in a yellow bar when automatic document restore is causing a solution to load significantly slower. You can disable automatic file reopening by following these steps:

  1. Select Tools > Options to open the Options dialog box.

  2. On the Projects and Solution > General page, deselect Reopen documents on solution load.

If you disable automatic file restore, a quick way to navigate to files you want to open is by using one of the Go To commands:

  • For the general Go To functionality, select Edit > Go To > Go To All, or press Ctrl+T.

  • Jump to the last edit location in a solution using Edit > Go To > Go To Last Edit Location, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Backspace.

  • Use Go To Recent File to see a list of recently visited files in a solution. Select Edit > Go To > Go To Recent File, or press Ctrl+1, Ctrl+R.

Configure debugging options

If you are typically running low on memory during debugging sessions, you can optimize performance by making one or more configuration changes.

  • Enable Just My Code

    The simplest optimization is to enable the Just My Code feature, which only loads symbols for your project. Enabling this feature can result in a significant memory saving for debugging managed applications (.NET). This option is already enabled by default in some project types.

    To enable Just My Code, choose Tools > Options > Debugging > General, and then select Enable Just My Code.

  • Specify symbols to load

    For native debugging, loading symbol files (.pdb) is expensive in terms of memory resources. You can configure your debugger symbol settings to conserve memory. Typically, you configure the solution to only load modules from your project.

    To specify symbol loading, choose Tools > Options > Debugging > Symbols.

    Set the options to Only specified modules instead of All modules and then specify which modules you care to load. While debugging, you can also right-click specific modules in the Modules window to explicitly include a module in the symbol load. (To open the window while debugging, choose Debug > Windows > Modules.)

    For more information, see Understand symbol files.

  • Disable Diagnostic Tools

    It is recommended that you disable CPU profiling after use. This feature can consume large amounts of resources. Once CPU profiling is enabled, this state is persisted across subsequent debug sessions, so it’s worth explicitly turning it off when done. You may save some resources by disabling the diagnostic tools while debugging if you do not need the provided features.

    To disable the Diagnostic Tools, start a debugging session, select Tools > Options > Debugging > General, and then deselect the Enable Diagnostic Tools while debugging option.

    For more information, see Profiling Tools.

Disable tools and extensions

Some tools or extensions can be turned off to improve performance.

Tip

You can often isolate performance issues by turning off extensions one at a time and rechecking performance.

Managed language service (Roslyn)

For information about .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") performance considerations, see Performance considerations for large solutions.

  • Disable full solution analysis

    Visual Studio performs analysis on your entire solution in order to provide a rich experience about errors before invoking a build. This feature is useful to identify errors as soon as possible. However, for large solutions, this feature can consume significant memory resources. If you’re experiencing memory pressure or similar issues, you can disable this experience to free up these resources. By default, this option is enabled for Visual Basic and disabled for C#.

    To disable Full Solution Analysis, choose Tools > Options > Text Editor, then select either Visual Basic or C#. Choose Advanced and deselect Enable full solution analysis.

  • Disable CodeLens

    Visual Studio performs a Find All References task on each method as it is displayed. CodeLens provides features such as the inline display of the number of references. The work is performed in a separate process such as ServiceHub.RoslynCodeAnalysisService32. In large solutions, or on resource-constrained systems, this feature can have a significant impact on performance. If you’re experiencing memory issues, for example, when loading a large solution on a 4-GB machine, or high CPU usage for this process, you can disable CodeLens to free up resources.

    To disable CodeLens, choose Tools > Options > Text Editor > All Languages > CodeLens, and deselect the feature.

    Note

    CodeLens is available in the Professional and Enterprise editions of Visual Studio.

Other tools and extensions

  • Disable Extensions

    Extensions are additional software components added to Visual Studio that provide new functionality or extend existing functionality. Extensions can often be a source of memory resource issues. If you’re experiencing memory resource problems, try disabling extensions one at a time to see how it impacts the scenario or workflow.

    To disable extensions, go to Tools > Extensions and Updates, and disable a particular extension.

  • Disable map mode

    Map mode displays lines of code, in miniature, on the scroll bar. Map mode is enabled by default.

    To disable map mode, go to Tools > Options > Text Editor > All Languages > Scroll Bars, and in the Behavior section, deselect the Use map mode for vertical scroll bar option.

  • Disable word wrap

    Word wrap displays the portion of a long line of code that extends beyond the current width of the code editor window. Word wrap is on by default.

    To disable word wrap for a project that you are currently working on, go to Edit > Advanced > Word Wrap. (You can toggle this setting by using the same menu commands.)

    To disable word wrap for all projects, go to Tools > Options > General > Text Editor > All Languages > General, and in the Settings section, deselect the Word wrap option.

  • Disable XAML Designer

    The XAML designer is enabled by default, but only consumes resources if you open a .xaml file. If you work with XAML files but do not wish to use the designer functionality, disable this feature to free up some memory.

    To disable XAML Designer, go to Tools > Options > XAML Designer > Enable XAML Designer, and deselect the option.

  • Remove workloads

    You can use the Visual Studio Installer to remove workloads that are no longer used. This action can streamline the startup and runtime cost by skipping packages and assemblies that aren’t needed anymore.

  • Add untracked files to local .gitignore

    Visual Studio runs the Git command git status with untracked files to provide a seamless experience when you add new files to a repository. When there are a large number of untracked files, git status can consume extra memory. To ignore these files and improve performance of git status, you can add these files or folders to your local .gitignore file. To access the file, go to Git > Settings > Git Repository Settings. Then, in the Git files section, click Add to create a .gitignore file, or click Edit if you already have one.

  • Enable commit graph in Git tooling (Preview-only)

    New in Visual Studio 2022 Preview: If you're experiencing delays when you view your Git repository or branch history in Visual Studio, we've integrated a "commit graph" feature that can help. To use commit graph, download the Visual Studio 2022 Preview. To learn more about commit graph, see the Supercharge your Git experience in Visual Studio blog post.

Force a garbage collection

The CLR uses a garbage collection memory management system. In this system, sometimes memory is used by objects that are no longer needed. This state is temporary; the garbage collector will release this memory based on its performance and resource usage heuristics. You can force the CLR to collect any unused memory by using a hotkey in Visual Studio. If there is a significant amount of garbage waiting for collection and you force a garbage collection, you should see the memory usage of the devenv.exe process drop in Task Manager. It’s rarely necessary to use this method. However, after an expensive operation has completed (such as a full build, debug session, or a solution open event), it can help you determine how much memory is really being used by the process. Because Visual Studio is mixed (managed & native), it’s occasionally possible for the native allocator and the garbage collector to compete for limited memory resources. Under conditions of high memory usage, it may help to force the garbage collector to run.

To force a garbage collection, use the hotkey: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F12, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F12 (press it twice).

If forcing garbage collection reliably makes your scenario work, file a report through the Visual Studio feedback tool as this behavior is likely to be a bug.

For a detailed description of the CLR garbage collector, see Fundamentals of garbage collection.

See also