I posted about this some years ago to no avail as NO-ONE was having this problem, but this issue still gets me bad. Hoping someone can help out.
When clicking in the bars and beats ruler (Cubase Pro 14), holding the mouse button down and pulling down to zoom in, i often get a lag of 200-300ms, sometimes a lot longer before the zoom happens. With a bare bones (or empty) session it’s perfect, but even just a handful of audio tracks and VST instruments the lag is apparent. It will lag 1 out of every 3 zoom actions, and i work full time in Cubase for audio work, so i do HUNDREDS of these zooms per day. When i had a Mac Studio this issue was a little bit worse. I tried the latest Nuendo 14 trial and that does the same thing. I’m on a high spec Intel Windows machine with Mid tier NVIDIA GPU’s. I use Dual 27inch 75hz screens via Display port.
I tried Studio One 7 and there is ZERO lag, same with Logic on my M2 MacBook pro.
Any tips appreciated!
There were some other people posting that they have a lag (always, sometimes? not sure anymore) when zooming with the mouse from the ruler. But there are others, like myself, that do not have this issue at all.
I have a rather mediocre 7 year old single screen laptop with 1920*1080 resolution and no HiDPI or scaling.
I don’t recall that anybody found a root cause for the lag.
How about your resolutions? Any OS scaling, any Cubase scaling in use?
My HDPI switch is off, no scaling.
The lag is most of the time, and very noticeable, i click and drag down, nothing happens for a lag period, then the zoom begins. I find it very fatiguing on my wrist. When zoomed right out to see a whole song, there is no lag. I’ll put it down to a bug that no-one really talks about, but it’s quickly becoming a deal breaker, i’ve been using Cubase for many years. I’ve begun my transition to Studio One for some projects, and it is missing some features i’m used to in cubase, but one thing is for sure, there is Zero lag on big sessions, it’s very snappy with the ruler zoom.
This was problem with Cubase 10 or something, than they fix the issue and they introduce it recently again. It needs some time to forget this and use ctrl and scroll up its easier to digest that and not looking for fix unfortunately.
I too have a small lag performing a “click and hold” in the timeline before the Zoom feature is triggered. 200-300ms sound about right, but it’s a bit hard to tell as I was generally overcompensating to make sure I didn’t have to do it again. This happens in both Cubase and Nuendo, and has been the case for several iterations, and is consistent across installs on two different MacOS systems.
I just switched to using the Command+Scroll feature to zoom instead of the “click-and-hold then drag” feature in the timeline and haven’t looked back since.
Just a complete guess, but I’ll assume that as they were developing various zooming features in combination with scrollable parameter changes (e.g. event gain) that it became necessary for them to code in an explicit “wait” threshold before trigging the timeline-based zoom in order to prevent conflicts with other features.
Changing to a key combination worked for me, with the added bonus of working irrespective of mouse position. Maybe that will work for you as well as this “feature” is analyzed for potential review. To that effect, maybe tag your post as an “issue” so it may be categorized as such…
If that were true then I would experience the lag as well. But I don’t, so lets bury this hypothesis.
So we can rule this out as causing the lag.
Again, it was talked about. It just doesn’t happen to everyone.
You can try the following:
Go to Edit → Profile Manager, create a NEW profile there and activate it. Then restart Cubase. When Cubase is running again make sure the ruler zooming option is enabled in the Preferences.
Is the lag gone?
If not you can switch back to your previous profile.
EDIT:
Fair enough, but I’d a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air (as I recall, anyway).
In my case, this happens on two separate MacOS devices (MBP/Studio), but when they broke through to pull us free, the only ones left to tell the tale was Joe and me.
I’m happy to test anything should anyone need. The purpose of my reply was to acknowledge the behavior while also providing an alternative.
That was very kind of you.
I would rather not elaborate on the specific point I singled out from your post because I can already smell that ChatGPT will take your paragraph and display it as the golden truth to people unfortunate enough to have replaced their Encyclopedia Britannica with this AI.
Ah, that makes more sense. I didn’t even think about that.
Man, it’s unfortunate we have to consider such things. I’ll change that just so we don’t have to be concerned with that eventuality.
Not the issue of this topic. Kindly please delete your post.
Thanks Johnny, just tried that, lag is still there, a good tip tho as i’ve had this profile around for years. Thor.HOG’s ctrl-scroll works but it still needs an extra step of clicking the mouse to play from that zoomed location.
THe LAG is an issue i’ve learned to deal with, compounded by my years of Cubase Muscle memory, i got my first Dongle back in 1998!
I know what you talking about, and know feeling of frustration. Ever since I relay on Ctrl+scroll zoom I have way less headache. Also pointing all the time on the ruler can be often cumbersome especially of you have vast screen space. I know that extra step bothers you and I have solution for that, while you holding Ctrl to zoom in/out you can use Ctrl+scroll click(mouse button3) to position playback so basically whenever you want to zoom and position playback cursor your fingers are on Ctrl and scroll already. The benefit you can zoom&position wherever on the project screen instead of dragging mouse upwards to the ruler bar. And I am assure you that this is way faster than dragging mouse from middle of screen (which in 80% cases mouse is located) to ruler bar and perform zoom & position than after moving mouse to the middle of the screen again. You need just a day or two muscle memory and small AHK script to get into but you will see it’s way faster. In case you want to try it out let me know to attach it here.
Thanks karlolsen. I have been doing that for a few days, Ctrl+scroll zoom, my muscle memory is many years old, but it’s ok, i need more time to adapt. What does the AHK script do ? I’m keen to try it, I already use AHK to disable F1 on the keyboard in my vocal booth as F1 launches the Cubase Manual and cannot be remapped
Lag ruler zoom is definitely 100% a thing.
Here’s the catch: If you pull down on the ruler where the edit cursor is located, there is no lag. It’s only when you try to pull down on the ruler in a new position that the lag is present.
Probably something to do with the initial click moving the cursor to the new position. Don’t know why that causes a lag, but it does. And it is annoying.
Script actually do following:
Ctrl+wheel click sends Ctrl+Alt+click (or how its set) in preferences/ tool modifiers/ set cursor playback <I cannot remember actually how it calls since I am way from cubase now but will attach it here and explain when I get into the studio.
That is a good catch. So a double-click and drag seems to work more often. I like it, although my OCD insists on REDUCING mouse click in a given lifetime! I agree there must be a behind the scenes ‘catch-up’ of the Cubase engine before it allows you to zoom.
That is a really good additional information.
I can see when I move the mouse cursor diagonally that there are times where Cubase does not zoom. I don’t think they are fixed areas, ie. dependent on the the project. Cubase simply at times stops zooming in or out with diagonal movement, even if the mouse is being used slowly. If it is done with fast mouse movement then it can appear like a lag. The length of the lag varies, I assume depending on mouse speed movement and direction.
The issue is definetely not present when moving the mouse straight down or up.
Since the playhead cursor also moves away from the mouse cursor with this zoom method I would not be surprised if these two issues have a common root.
- Set this first:
- Make and run ahk1 script:
#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.
;SET PLAYBACK POSITION CTRL+Scroll Click
;^Preferences/Tool Modifiers/Select Tool/Set Cursor Position to CTRL+ALT+SHIFT
#IfWinActive ahk_exe Cubase14.exe
^MButton::
SendInput, {Ctrl Down}{Alt Down}{Shift Down}{LButton Down}
KeyWait, MButton
SendInput, {LButton Up}{Shift Up}{Alt Up}{Ctrl Up} ;Release in opposite order
return
- Hold CTRL and Scroll Click (middle click) anywhere on the project working area in order to place playback cursor.
Here is how it works:
Thank you for this Karl. I got it going and will train myself to stick with it for the day!