I’m aware that condensing slows Dorico down, but I feel this has become a major workflow issue. I love the software, but working with large scores is honestly a headache.
I recently upgraded from an iMac to a Mac Studio (M4 Max, 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 64 GB unified memory) specifically because of Dorico, yet I’m still experiencing significant lag. I’m working on a single-movement score of ~600 bars with around 40 staves, and almost every edit takes a couple of seconds to process.
I know some users will suggest turning off condensing, however there are too many edits and condensing-related decisions that need to be made with condensing enabled. Also, working with multiple tabs (e.g. Write mode + Engrave mode side-by-side) becomes nearly impossible due to the slowdown.
Are there any plans to improve Dorico’s performance with large projects? I do love new features with each version, but I think this is as important or probably more important than adding new features.
This is the only major limitation that makes large scores very difficult to handle right now.
I’d look into something within the system itself. I’m on an Intel 7 Ultra 255H based system with 32 GB of RAM, and I’m experiencing no issues with it lagging using Condensing. My system, by all measures, should be much slower than yours overall. Now, I haven’t written a 600-measure score with 40 staves yet, but I’ve loaded up a few that are near that, and still no lagging. There’s some setting in your system causing this, I’m betting. At least I hope so for your sake.
Maybe it is an issue with the VST libraries you are using or the way they are connected to Dorico.
A few months ago I finished copying the first movement of Mahler’s third symphony. 875 bars 52 players several with more than 1 instrument. I in the final sessions had condensing on and also kept proofreading on but I have no real CPU related issues. I also have 64GB unified memory however with an M1Max chipset. Just switching between write and engrave mode sometimes but not always takes some time and when adding an additional player or deleting one takes a bit of patience.
I do use VE Pro for all instruments but on the other hand also have MIR on all VEP channels which gives some additional charge.
I’ve just waited 20 minutes for Dorico to select about 12 bars of music using the System Track. I run performance monitoring software on my computer and my CPU load is at 18% and my memory pressure is at 9%. Basically nothing much going on for my computer to do.
This is a major problem - something in the way Dorico processes things for condensed scores is non-functional when you are composing large orchestral works. It needs urgent attention.
For some context I’m in the 9th movement of a symphony (about 45 minutes in). All my virtual instruments are being handled by VE Pro 8 and that is all working perfectly - it’s actually Dorico’s internal processing that’s getting stuck.
Just FYI I can’t share the file on the forum as it’s a commercial commission. I’m mentioning it because I’ve been looking for answers and there are lots of threads like this one without solutions. It’s a real pain point for professional users.
I respectfully disagreed Ben. Perhaps that’s true of the ideal workflow but the reality of professional composers contexts can be very different.
I have to send scores off daily for feedback from stakeholders. I need to be swapping regularly between write and engrave mode to check formatting and presentation. Switching on and off condensing causes layout changes in Dorico. You can’t lock layouts effectively and there are lots of contexts where global settings don’t quite get the desired effect.
The reality is that the backend of Dorico isn’t effectively utilising multicore computers and when you have condensing switched on the programming gets stuck in these weird loops. That is something the development team should be prioritising in my opinion and the opinion of many other users on the forum. Given that the development team asks users to post requests here - that’s what I’m doing.
There’s actally nothing to “disagree” with here: What @benwiggy pointed out is the current situation. Condensing eats lots of resources, so turning it off temporarily will easy your pain.
We certainly all agree with you that Dorico could handle such things better
As an experiment, I turned condensing off and tried selecting the same section of bars I mentioned in my earlier post. More than twenty minutes later that selection still isn’t available yet. This is my CPU and Memory stats:
I wonder… Has this changed suddenly or has it been getting worse over time?
I ask this because when selecting some bars now takes over 20 minutes, I wonder how you have been working on the file at all. You said that this is a symphony of multiple movements - so my question is: How could you have worked at all up to this point?
When selecting something takes 20 minutes now, it might have taken “only” 19 minutes yesterday, but this would keep anybody from working.
Good question. Things start slowing down the larger the file gets, but especially after about the 30 minute mark and it’s been getting progressively worse since then.
That said, I work on lots of large projects - this issue isn’t specific to this file / project. This is the one I happen to be working on today and it’s the worst it’s been for a while. This issue comes up all the time on big works. I’m usually working between three or four projects at any one time.
I’ve tried working in different documents and importing flows but that isn’t great as you lose engrave mode formatting when you have to import one flow into another document.
For large projects, there is also a benefit of being able to move quickly between flows and copy and paste themes and make variations. So for me, one document is the workflow that has ended up suiting - especially as I have to work fast. shrug
I’ve trying that @TonH with the current file since the problem cropped up to troubleshoot what’s going on. It hasn’t helped in this instance unfortunately.
I’ve been investigating the logs in Activity Monitor using the process sample tool and there seems to be a bunch of visual rendering loops that won’t end (condensing is off but there are lots of instruments in my score as its for orchestra + choir).
I’ll keep plugging away at it, but my best guess is that it genuinely is a back end software issue.
@lilycat, it would be helpful to have your project and details of specific operations you are taking that are slow. It would also be helpful to know the details of your computer’s hardware specification. You can email this information to me rather than posting it here on the forum, at d dot spreadbury at steinberg dot de.
