Anyone running Dorico successfully on a Surface Pro 3?

Dorico
1

Hi gang!

I’m about to pull the trigger on Dorico. Just wondering if anyone is successfully running Dorico on a Surface Pro 3 with the i5 processor, 4 gigs of RAM.

I fully understand that it doesn’t support the pen. That’s fine. I would also be curious if you’re using the dongle, and if you use the dongle with a USB hub.

Thanks in advance!

2

well it does support the pen inasmuch as you can use it for mouse-like input (just like in the current Sib version).

3

I think you may struggle with 4GB of RAM. It will probably be fine for smaller scores, but anything bigger may result in lots of swapping, which will be very slow. I’d suggest waiting for the demo in a few weeks so you can get a better idea. This update will fix a number of performance issues too.

4

That’s a good idea. Thanks for the insight!

5

I’m running Dorico with 4GB RAM. It’s been OK so far - hopefully the performance will be a bit better in the next update.

6

Yes, I am running Dorico on a Surface Pro 3 i5, but with 8GB Ram. No issues whatsoever, looks really good. However playback is a bit jittery - if this is important to you check the demo (when it is available) first. It does not bother me as I am not wanting playback (to me, I have to say, the ‘stock’ Dorico sounds are even worse than Sibelius atm, but it’s quite easy to substitute with other vsts, though this would clog up a Surface even more) I am also switching computers using the eLicenser so I have access to a powerful processor and big monitor if I need. Audio on that works fine, so it is a Surface thing with the playback - it may well improve in later releases.

Hope that helps,

Best wishes,

Mike

7

That sounds more likely to be down to audio driver / hardware to me. If you get Halion up and click on the on-screen keyboard with the mouse, do you get a perceivable delay between clicking and hearing the note, on the Surface?

8

You may get better results if you increase the buffer size of your audio device (or in the ASIO Generic Low Latency Device control panel). There’s also a few options in HALion that you can try tweaking

9

Thanks Paul and Neil, as I said above the poor audio functionality was not something I was bothered about as I don’t really use it (audio) on the surface, but in fact increasing the buffer size does stop the stuttering, so worth noting for anyone wanting to use it more than I do.

There is something about the resolution on the Surface Pro 3 screen that does make Dorico look extremely elegant, I have to say :slight_smile:

Cheers folks,

Mike

10

if you’re going to rely on Dorico playback a lot with your Surface, you’ll probably be better off getting a small external audio interface (I have the M Audio transit, that has been discontinued for a while now but drivers still work with W10), and all the problems I had with the onboard RealTek audio (even using Asio4all) are gone- initializing, playing back, etc. Sure, it’s more bulk to go, but not much- size of a matchbox. For the Surface (just one USB slot I think?) you’ll need a hub/splitter, though.