Dorico very slow and not improving

Wow - thank you everyone for the detailed discussion!

Just wanted to chime in as the original author of the post and clarify that in my opinion Dorico is an incredible advance in notation software. I have used Finale and Sibelius extensively as well as many other programs and platforms and I think Dorico is far superior to all of these - not just in options but in its basic architecture.

Going back to my original request - I do think it would be an important improvement in user experience if there was an easy way to release whatever calculations are happening in the background and preserve only those related to the open flows and layouts. Sure, quitting and restarting is an option, but not a very user friendly one.

Thank you again everyone for your help.

Just one word from a day-1 user : it has really improved a lot. But there’s still room for improvement :wink:

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As always, I’d like to point out the following thread about deleting the video dll : Extremely high energy usage. Dorico 3

That might help the performance!

Much obliged sir !

Hello avdor, I’m looking at your Mac configuration, and think it might not be solid enough.
I have projects of similar magnitude as yours, but without video. For example: Camille Saint-Saëns, organ Symphony, 4 flows, 37 instruments (with piano 4-handed, all strings in up to 4 divisi, etc), about 1250 bars, about 35 different layouts, using all possible score layout condensing tricks (that were created in Dorico 3.5). Sound libraries are all from Vienna Symphony Library. Concert hall setting is the MIR Vienna Konzerthaus Grosse Saal.
Until a couple of months ago, my Windows 10 64-bit workstation had an Intel i7-5820K cpu @ 3.3 HGz base speed, 6 cores (all 12 logical processors used in Dorico 3.5), 32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 10 TB HDD, with 3 displays (4 K, 2560x1440, HD) and NVidia 960 GTX video card.
On the Saint-Saëns project, the system became very slow: for example, changing a note in the 4th flow could take a couple of seconds.
I replaced the mother board, and have now an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-core processor @3.8 GHz base speed, same RAM and video card, and I doubled the SSD, and inserted a faster HDD… Dorico uses the full 24 logical processors.
Now, the response of Dorico has become again satisfactorily: the response is instantaneous, even when editing in the last bar of the composition, and all instruments activated. According to tests on www.cpubenchmark.net, the performance score of the CPU jumped from 9,741 to 39,224 (i.e. a factor 4).
It does make a huge difference.:slight_smile:!
If you wish, I can do a test with your project on my workstation, to verify whether processor power is really the root cause of your difficulties. Any data you would share will obviously remain confidential.
Success with your investigations!

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Sounds marvelous. What a tremendous undertaking!

Thank you for the compliment, Romanos401!

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been experiencing crashes. If you would like to send us a set of diagnostics, we’ll be happy to take a look and see if the issues you are experiencing are known about and have solutions. And, as you will hopefully know, we are engaged in a long-term project to replace the eLicenser in Dorico with something else, and although it’s hard to say exactly what the number is, its days are numbered.

In theory Dorico does do this. The crucial thing is to work with as few windows and tabs as possible. Any window or tab that is open on the project, even if you’re not looking at it or even if it’s not visible (because it’s minimised, or it’s not the frontmost tab, or it’s hidden behind another window) will be recalculated with every edit.

On a really big project, I’d try to keep it to a maximum of two tabs or two windows, and if you can keep it to one, then so much the better. Switching between the full score and a part layout can take a while on a big project, so keeping a single tab in which you can flip between parts quickly shouldn’t be too heavy in terms of resources, but keeping multiple tabs or windows open onto the full score or other layouts with many instruments will definitely be more expensive.

It’s not quite as dire as some in the thread have suggested that any layout you have viewed at any point in the session will always be recalculated: that is in fact not the case. Only layouts that are presently open in a tab or window (whether visible or not) will be recalculated after each edit.

Thanks . I had a few weeks where Dorico was crashing but whatever I did it seemed to do the trick . I’ll get over my ptsd ! :rofl:
Now, sometimes Dorico won’t open - I get an error . Then, if I download eliscener and install Dorico will open . Dorico is such a great platform it pains me that it suffers from amateur bugs .
For now , everything is running great . If the crashes start up again I’ll post the report .
It really is a beautiful application . I sure hope version 4 is rock solid and stable . Easy for me to say I know ! Thanks for the above response . All the best . Peace

Gah, I take it back! I’ve been operating under a faulty assumption for years now, lol! Next you’ll be telling me that since v1, Dorico’s been able to compose your music for you :rofl:

It was once upon a time the case that whatever layout was active when you first opened the project would continue to be calculated even after it was replaced by another one. But that’s no longer the case (I’m not entirely sure when we changed it, but it was a version or two ago now). So you do have some basis for your belief, but it’s perhaps drifted a little in the direction of superstition since…

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Thank you! It’s very useful to know that these ideas (which I’ve seen expressed quite often) are actually not correct.

Here’s something I have noticed, and maybe can be improved in future releases. If I use Page View with condensing and then switch to Galley View, the program seems to continue to calculate certain changes as they relate to the condensing (maybe all of them?). The most obvious one to me is the respelling of notes - if I try to respell a note in Galley View in a staff that is condensed it can take as long as 10-20 seconds. However, if I quit and open it in Galley View and not go to page view it’ll respell quickly as expected.

Personally, I find this to be challenging because I am making corrections that came back from my proofreader. So being able to view the condensed score in page view is quite essential (for bar numbers and for any graphic changes) - so, for me, it would be much better if moving to Galley View would automatically cause Dorico to not recalculate condensing changes with every change I make.

This is my interpretation of the behaviour I’m experiencing - naturally, I could be wrong.

Thank you again for your great support on these forums and for a fantastic application.

Yes, if condensing is switched on, Dorico will still be doing the condensing work even if you’re in galley view. It should be harmless to switch it off if you’re working in galley view for a while.