How to speed up Dorico a bit. Don't beat me up.

Dorico
1

Experimenting with large modern score template. Using Light and Sound chamber with my own expression maps which I will share when I know it isn’t garbage and the rest are Steinbergs Halion. Can an expression map induce sluggishness? Don’t know. And why didn’t Obama pass a law making sample makers create expression maps for programs… good question.

With not much music entered as I am merely experimenting it is already sluggish. I still managed to improve it so just a reminder for those who are having sluggishness.

  1. This may induce eye rolling but a few of you may have not done it. Adjust the appearance and performance of windows… performance … search in your windows lower right search… adjust for performance… It helped a lot. (I have one of the fastest Ryzen and top graphics card 16gb ram (memory at 60% and processor at 10% and Dorico is sluggish on the mixer and moving the score around.) This improved things more then just a bi but it still is really present.

  2. As well as closing your web browser… shocked… this also improved things significantly and only had one youtube open and paused.

This improved things more then just a bit but it still is really present.

Because I doubt they want me to create another thread for what they already know… the mixer percentage sliders for sends is still needing massive improvements… again… spread sheet pop up to type these amounts in in bulk is my recommendation. No real need for tiny sliders clumsy carryover from hardwarebut if wanted all the sliders should get large when clicked and you should be able to cntrl click to fine adjust or/and you should be able to type in values. Anyway… they don’t need my help as they are saying no kidding… but there it is I guess.

Sluggishness is my only real issue with Dorico at this stage as it is in pre-teen years but must be fixed. I also want to be able to open my VST without going to play mode from write mode. In fact I would bet that many people want to access features without the program needing to do this shift as it is a pause pause thing.

The reason I switched to Dorico was over text and frames. That was so obvious an improvement that I could not but realize they had a lot up their sleeves and the way you enter notes and various “ornamentations” so to speak is simply perfection. Love the insert feature.

I can barely write my own name let alone this properly so think to yourselves this is pretty good for him.

2

Thanks for the feedback. Part of the sluggishness you’re experiencing might be due to the system track if you’re in galley view: try switching it off with Alt+T or by choosing View > System Track and it will probably make things feel a bit faster.

3

I’m also curious if the speed of Dorico tends to slow down (as I seem to be noticing) the longer I have a larger session open (such as with a single, 51-page orchestral score). I’ve found myself not infrequently closing/opening the program or even restarting my computer when I’ve noticed this slowdown (Tempo track off). I’m also curious how much of a relationship there is between speed and how much actual note material is present on the screen at a given time. Would it be generally faster, for example, for me to use a more zoomed in view rather than the wider angle, wholistic score view possible on my 4K monitor? I’m also curious how slow it SHOULD be with a 2015 MacBook Pro (2 cores, 16 gib RAM) - at times I’m literally watching it slow motion re-draw/process things (as I get going) over many multiple seconds ( and I’m also curious what people are experiencing with faster processors since I’ll likely upgrade in the next 6-9 months, especially if it appreciably helps)?

  • D.D.
4

Dorico in general doesn’t get slower the longer it’s been open (that would suggest problems like memory leaks, which in general is not something the program has a problem with), but it doesn’t cost you very much to try closing and reopening the project. One reason why closing and reopening the project may make a difference is that when you reopen a project, only the layouts that are open in the window(s) you are working on will be active, whereas if you have worked on a bunch of different layouts since you opened the project, whichever was the first layout open when you first opened the project (typically the full score) will be being processed in the background. Drawing more of the score at once will also make some difference, though probably not an especially large one.

5

DD, did you see the thing I posted the other day about number of processor cores? My MacBook Pro is slow with larger Dorico projects, because it only has a dual-core processor. My HP machine has slower processor cores but it has four rather than two. The difference is huge.

6

My two cents about changing your computer is that it will not make much a difference. My feeling is that when they figure this out it will speed up dramatically and is not a system problem for most people. I also found something interesting which probably deserves its own thread and it is in regards to the hanging problem people are experiencing, This I resolved on an all Kontakt file modern orchestra save one Waves piano plug by running the file in Windows 8 mode by starting Dorico right click and troubleshoot . My system ran it with Windows 8 settings and it loaded much much much faster and also did not hang at the end which it very often did otherwise… I would guess a 80 percent performance in load and usability. I did repeat this at least six or seven times - the file is five or six gigs and it no longer hung and the draw was fast. Perhaps that deserves a thread. I will experiment more on this before starting one.

7

I can’t think of any reason at all why running in a win8 compatibility mode would make any difference to the performance. Did you do this test straight after running normally? If so, it’s not surprising that it’s faster the second time because lots of data will be cached. You should need to do the test a second time in the regular win10 mode to ensure that you are comparing the same situation.

8

All I can say for certain is I am confused. Running Prime95 to make sure it is not the machine and I believe I figured some things out in my device manager that helped sluggishness. Will look tomorrow. Also I have tried countless times with careful attention to all instructions to get my vst2 working. I am on my lap so can’t sent it but I know how to copy the name and that it is a txt format file and no gaps between names
name no extension
name no extension
have deleted the three files and placed my vst in the common folder and put the white list where the instructions say… nothing gets read. Do I need to delete my … cant remember the name… the dorico audio engine so it will rescan? I thought that was what deleting the three files was for… I really think a new sticky is necessary for this at the top… it may be there and I am missing it.

9

You could indeed try deleting the VSTAudioEngine2_64 folder in %APPDATA%\Steinberg and then restart Dorico, which will rescan all of your plug-ins etc.

10

Thanks Daniel. I hope you don’t mind but if someone comes across this here is how to solve it in an all in one post. I added a line here and there to be helpful and to solve the problem I was having.

How to use VST2 plug-ins in Dorico
Dorico supports all VST3 instruments and effects plug-ins. However, some plug-in manufacturers have not yet updated their plug-ins to the VST3 format, and until they do, you might want to use some VST2 compatible plug-ins with Dorico. Read more on VST3 …

Problem

My VST2 instruments and effects don’t appear in the list of available plug-ins in the VST Instruments rack in Play mode, or in the menus that appear in the Inserts and Sends section of the Mixer.

Solution

First, please check with your plug-in’s manufacturer to find out whether a VST3 compatible version of the plug-in is yet available. If such a version is available, we recommend that you use that version with Dorico.

By default, Dorico will only load VST2 plug-ins that are explicitly whitelisted. These are plug-ins that we have tested with Dorico and are satisfied that they will not cause any problems. At the time of writing, only Native Instruments’ Kontakt plug-in is on the whitelist that is included with Dorico.

You can allow Dorico to load additional VST2 plug-ins by adding your own whitelist.

Remember your vst2 extension *.dll files (fm2.dll for example) should be copied to folder in next line.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2

The necessary steps in detail:

Close all programs including Dorico.
Make sure you have installed the latest Dorico update . This solution only works with Dorico 1.1 or later.
Create a new text document in your favourite plain text editor (e.g. Notepad on Windows, and TextEdit on Mac OS X).
Enter the file name of the desired VST plug-in without file name extension. Please strictly comply with the spelling and case of the original file name.
Start a new line for each VST2 plug-in you like to add to your whitelist.
Examples:

Name of plug-ins on hard disk

macOS: VST2Plugin.vst, AnotherVST2Plugin.vst
Windows: VST2Plugin.dll, AnotherVST2Plugin.vst

Entries of plug-ins in your whitelist… below an example only and the case and spacing critical … must be the same.

Absynth 5 FX
FM8
Wivi Band


Save the document as ‘vst2whitelist.txt’ to a folder of your choice or, for example, on the Desktop. You may want to use notepad in windows as it uses plain txt format. Do not save in richtext format.

Copy the newly created file ‘vst2whitelist.txt’ to the following folder:

macOS

Dorico 1
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine

Dorico 2
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine2

Windows

Dorico 1
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\VSTAudioEngine_64

Dorico 2
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\VSTAudioEngine2_64

On windows you can navigate to this folder by first going into your search pane lower right and type in folder options and then the view tab and click show hidden files folders and drives.

Also this may work as well on your system using the run command.

macOS

Copy (cmd + C) this path to the clipboard:
Dorico 1
~/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine
Dorico 2
~/Library/Preferences/VSTAudioEngine2
Select ‘Go to Folder…’ from the ‘Go’ menu of the macOS Finder or press cmd + Shift + G in the Finder.
Paste (cmd + V) the path in the newly opened dialog box and click on [Go].
Windows

Open the ‘Run’ command prompt by pressing the Windows logo key and R on the keyboard simultaneously. The Windows key is located between the keys Ctrl and alt.
In the command line of the ‘Run’ window, enter this path:
Dorico 1
%appdata%/Steinberg/VSTAudioEngine_64
Dorico 2
%appdata%/Steinberg/VSTAudioEngine2_64

Click on [OK].

GO INTO THE THIS FOLDER AND PLACE YOUR FILE NAMED vst2whitelist.txt and DELETE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE FOLDER.

Next time you start Dorico, it will re-scan installed VST2 plug-ins considering the new entry in the whitelist. The added plug-in should now be at your service in Dorico.


Please note that VST2 plug-ins that are not included in the original whitelist are not officially supported.

11

Dorico worked like a champ all day. No crashes and it even got out of some sticky situations that would crash more mature software if you know what I mean. Note entry as far as speed felt 90 percent as what you would hope for as far as speed. I had a good load of samples in it on a fast system. I think it was my device manager and enabling things in there. Looking forward to having my Kontakt outs in my mixer.

12

I’m glad Dorico is running more stably on your system now. Paul is working on the problem with the plug-in outputs at the moment: the problem itself is fixed, but now we need a special fix-up step to try to restore the outputs to the mixer in existing projects. That will take some time for us to implement, then we have to test the fix, and then we will look at getting a small patch release out to fix it.

13

My system is hanging due to bad hardware. Replacing board.