After working with Dorico for the past few months (coming from Sibelius & Finale), everything seemed to be going OK until I tried opening up a few larger orchestral scores. As soon as I tried to enter or edit notes, I found that there was almost a 1/2 to 1 second delay in response within Dorico. While learning it I only used smaller scores so never noticed this before. This was happening on my Dell Xeon 12-core desktop with 192 GB memory (Windows 11). I tried it with 3 different keyboards with the same response. I’m not using condensing, and tried it with and without using playback engines. I tried modifying every setting possible with no luck. In fact, a current score I was working on, I had to go back to Sibelius just to complete it since the response was so bad. Yet midi is working just fine in Sibelius, Cubase, Pro Tool etc. The only app it’s noticeable in is Dorico. I just read many similar issues on the forum with past versions of Dorico as well, so this is obviously an issue that should have been addressed by now. Note that all midi/audio drivers are up to date. I even tried a few class-compliant keyboards. My Yamaha piano uses a multi-client driver, so it should work fine with multiple midi apps simultaneously. I then tried the same score on my Macbook Pro (Sonoma). Although they seemed a bit quicker, there was still a drastic slow down in response. I also downloaded a few scores made in Dorico including Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring from the forum in order to try out. Stravinsky Rite of Spring.
Upon opening these scores on both the PC and Mac, entering in a few new notes became almost impossible since the delay became more than 2 to 3 seconds for every note entered. Turning off condensing helped a little, but no where near enough to be usable. For the hell of it, I exported the scores as XML files and imported them into Sibelius, and of course they worked just fine.
Since both my computers are less than 2 years old (and cost enough as well), I really can’t imagine what kind of computer it would take to run Dorico efficiently at this point. I am now finding it completely unusable for large scores. Again, I’ve tested this on both Mac and PC with 3 different keyboards. I can’t imagine how 2 of the latest computer systems on the market cannot handle a music notation app in 2025. I was using Finale almost 30 years ago on some of the top films in Hollywood at the time, with computers whose specs were a joke compare to what’s available today.
I think the Dorico staff will ask you to make a diagnostic dump. Others have very large scores that work fine. How large by the way? How many pages? How many VST’s? Don’t assume everybody else has this problem. We’ll get it sorted here I am confident.
I have opened the Rite of Spring file in my Surface Pro 9 (i5 12th gen, 8 Gb RAM, Windows 11). Dorico 5.1.81.
Took almost one minute to open the score (from the open score option, it is, with Dorico already open…).
And yes, any note takes like two (2) seconds to appear in the score once I click them. Sometimes it gets even to 4 or 5 seconds.
I will try to find other big scores for Dorico and see if this is a problem with any big scores, and not specifically a problem with this particular file.
@Santiago_Galan What about the RAM usage, did you check the Performance tab in the Task Manager? 8GB seems a little tight these days. (Wouldn’t explain the OP’s system lagging, though.)
While it did take a while for the Stravinsky score to load, note selection is pretty instantaneous for me.
This is on a Mac M1 Pro with 32 Gb RAM.
2025-02-19 10:00:07.513 [info] Executing command: EventEdit.NavigateRight
2025-02-19 10:00:07.581 [info] notifyPostCommandExecute: EventEdit.NavigateRight (67 ms)
2025-02-19 10:00:07.582 [info] processAuditionEvents() - processed 7 events
2025-02-19 10:00:07.918 [info] Executing command: EventEdit.NavigateRight
2025-02-19 10:00:07.984 [info] processAuditionEvents() - processed 7 events
2025-02-19 10:00:07.993 [info] notifyPostCommandExecute: EventEdit.NavigateRight (75 ms)
2025-02-19 10:00:08.654 [info] Executing command: EventEdit.NavigateRight
2025-02-19 10:00:08.734 [info] notifyPostCommandExecute: EventEdit.NavigateRight (79 ms)
2025-02-19 10:00:08.740 [info] processAuditionEvents() - processed 7 events
I’m experiencing similar issues in a project that is not large at all (wind band score, 30ish players but only 1 flow of 110 bars). The problems started when I started inputting the percussion parts (I work in Galley view only). Inputting a single note (with Y key) can take up to a second. Note input for the winds was absolutely fine up until the moment I started with percussion, after which all note input became really slow. Windows 10, Intel Core i7, 16gb RAM (which isn’t enormous but is according to the recommended specs). No custom VST’s. I can’t upload this file because it’s under copyright and cutting it down doesn’t make much sense for this problem. Would a Diagnostics report be of any use in this case?
Maybe you are right… 8 Gb was more than enough with regular Music editing programs until now. Maybe Dorico is simply much more demanding (or less optimized…)
I have tried out of curiosity to write notes in the provided Triumphant in Sohn score, which has just a few pages, and it took a second to show the new notes I am writing…
You could try the Silent playback template.
Or write in Page View because Galley will try to calculate from bar 1 of the project, while Page will elaborate only a few pages back and forth.
Try also to write notes directly in a part layout, it may help a bit.
My guess is that since Dorico has no idea of bars, just of distance from beat 1 of the piece (that’s how it can make open bars), the more one gets away from that, the more calculations it needs to do.
What about inputting new notes? With Igor’s blessing, of course!
As a comparison, on my ultra-aged Mac Pro 2013 (64 GB or RAM) opening Stephen Tyler’s Rite of Spring Part I takes 38s. Entering a note is less than half a second.
NotePerformer is selected as the playback option.
Paolo
Just tried on my M3 Max MacBook Pro, 36 GB of unified memory:
- opening file: 17.10 seconds
- entering a note was almost instantaneous, with the little lag I would expect from such a score. I could not measure that. Is there a way to do that?
Surprisingly, in galley view, it was even faster.
So, it seems that while memory is a thing, the CPU speed should be taken into account.
That’s supposed to be faster, no?
Jesper
This may or may not be related specifically to note entry, but: Processing slowness
I would’ve thought the opposite, but am glad to be wrong 
In the order of 300 ms.
Yes, absolutely: that’s what they’re there for!
When I engraved the piece on a 2019 MacBook Pro, as the file grew larger, note input was indeed very, very slow. Adding a staccato, etc., could take several seconds. Since then I’ve been able upgrade my machines. On a 2023 M3 MacBook Pro, 36 GB RAM, the Rite of Spring is pretty snappy. Even a major operation, like switching the score from transposed to concert pitch, takes about 26 seconds.
I also have an iPad M4, and the Rite of Spring is similarly easy to edit on this as well.
I have the same issue in Finale, too. Dorico is not slower at all.
I’ve tested this out on a number of scores with similar results on both the PC & Mac. This was with Playback engines set to Iconica Sketch, Noteperformer, as well as Silence (which is usually how I work since I mainly use and external Piano for writing/orchestrating. I usually only use the sound libraries if someone needs to hear an example.) My Macbook Pro has 16 GB memory, but the PC desktop workstation has 192 GB (12-core 3.5 GHz). Everything is run off internal SSD drives.
Again, the larger the scores get (more notes, more staves, more pages), the slower note input and editing eventually gets as well. With the solo piano template, input/editing is simultaneous. I’m not using condensing option at all right now. Regarding the scores I’m testing on, they are quite large, not always in page count, but in the number of instruments. Orchestrations are also often quite dense. I even tried using both the Mac/PC computer keyboards for note input (no midi devices) with the same results.
Note that with the Rite of Spring score examples I mentioned, having both condensing on, and showing multiple flows in a single layout definitely makes things much worse regarding input and editing. Although other scores I’ve tested usually only had 1 flow per layout and no condensing. Page vs Galley View doesn’t seem to make much difference in those cases. Dorico for Mac definitely works a bit quicker than for PC regardless. Scrolling & zooming in these scores seems fine though. I even tried exporting the Dorico file via MusicXML into Sibelius. Editing/Input in Sibelius was simultaneous.
I do agree that Finale at times would slow down to a crawl with larger scores, especially with zooming in/out. It’s one of the reasons I originally switched to Sibelius. I do not personally like Avid, but Sibelius is fast on both Mac & PC with both zooming and editing regardless of the score size. I’ve used Cubase for many years now, so was hoping to eventually switch over to Dorico. I think I will need to keep Sibelius around for a while yet though at this point.
Probably the same problem
Just for fun I’d like to benchmark the Stravinsky as well, did you guys use part 1 for this?
And, I don’t have Noteperformer installed, does this matter?
B.
I was using part 1.