ZBrush needed a clean install today, lots of crashing and slow sculpting. I fortunately don't have many ZTools yet, because I deleted all of them by mistake. I ended up contacting ZBrush support for help optimizing performance, or at least figuring out what I was doing wrong.
On going through the report I see a glaring issue. You have added a ton of brushes to your ZData\BrushPresets folder.
This is an absolute no-no. You should never modify the contents of the ZData directory. That directory contains the things that ZBrush absolutely requires in order to be able to function. Any changes to it can destabilize the software.
Brushes should go in either:
ZStartup\BrushPresets
ZBrushes
Anything in the ZStartup directory will be loaded at launch. Anything in ZBrushes will be added to LightBox so that they can be accessed when you need them without taking up system resources.
Also, the ZBrush UI was not designed to hold more than 25 of any given startup item. Not only do startup items add resource overhead and reduce what's able to be used for sculpting, having more than 25 of any given item can lead to instability because the UI is being forced to adapt in ways that it's not meant to be. So your ZStartup\BrushPresets folder should have no more than 25 brushes and those should be the brushes that you use constantly.
I also don't recommend having punctuation and spaces in any subdirectory names. You have a "BrushPresets - Copy Backup" folder that is containing all of those brushes that you've added to ZData. So in addition to removing that folder it would be best to change its name.
I would like you to make backups of everything in your ZBrush folder that you wish to keep. That includes the \ZData\BrushPresets - Copy Backup directory and any custom models in your ZProjects and ZTools folders. Then I would like you to perform a clean installation. This is not the same thing as a regular uninstall/reinstall. It involves removing some files manually.
Please follow the instructions in this article: https://support.pixologic.com/article/454-how-to-do-a-full-reinstallation
Let us know if you need further assistance. (In which case we'd need a new Diagnostic Report.) Otherwise, Happy ZBrushing!
So not my favorite day ever but I got some details on how to run ZBrush a little smoother. I did end up doing the clean install and pasting all my custom configurations back in. I don't think I could survive without hotkeys.
We'll look away from the fact that I didn't have more than 25 given startup items....and that it was a backup folder of ZBrush default brushes....but I did have a project in that startup folder on accident :D oops.
Hoping this spa treatment helps my buddy ZBrush flow smoother. I'll keep my files stored more carefully.
Lemon photograph by Francesco Cantinelli on Unsplash.com and modified under the Unsplash license.