Make Dorico 6 Pro operate faster (Windows 10)

[Stefan_B]

HI all, unfortunately Dorico operates quite slow on my 350 bar orchestral score when it comes to creating instruments/ switching between score and parts/ etc.

Are there some tricks to make it run smoother?

(I have 32 GB Ram in the machine. Dorico Pro. 6.2.20)

Thanks, Stefan

[Christian_R]

Hi @Stefan_B, generally the most important factor in a computer to have Dorico run smoothly is the single core performance of your CPU (beside other factors as RAM, etc… ).

There are many discussions in the Forum about this, with suggestions on what to avoid in the workflow (like don’t activate condensing until the very end of your workflow, etc…)

If you would like to upload an example Dorico project that doesn’t run as you wish, we can have a look and see if this is a problem with your file or with your system.

[Stefan_B]

Thanks much Christian. Unfortunately I cannot upload this score. It is a large orchestra, with triple woodwinds and so forth. And all strings divided in two staves each almost all of the time. 350 bars. But all normal notation, no weired symbols etc.

Can you run such a score smoothly?

My machine is certainly not the newest. Intel Core i7. 32 GM RAM. Windows 10 still.

Do you have any ideas based on this, to have the score run smoother? (I’m not condensing staves so far).

Thanks!

[Janus]

@Stefan_B

My machine is certainly not the newest. Intel Core i7. 32 GM RAM. Windows 10 still.

I have a similar spec and generally have no problem. Have you tried running
Stravinsky-RiteOfSpring-I.dorico.zip - Google Drive, which is a pretty good benchmark?

For me it is slow to load/edit, but definitely not unusable.

[Christian_R]

Hi @Stefan_B, beside the suggestion above, you could try this classic test (have a look at the whole thread to see the results of other), so you can have an idea of how your system reacts (the test is limited to condensing/uncondensing,but can give an idea of the situation), to see the time needed exactly you can look it in the application.log file in the Dorico system folder (or just stopwatch it…) :

Dorico performance benchmarks?

I have all my default fonts saved in my userlibrary so you’d get a zillion error messages, but it’s just … File / New From Project Template / Orchestral / Modern Orchestra 4/4, add 999 bars Enter whole notes E, D, C in the three Flutes in the first bar Play / Playback Template / Silence … then turn Condensing on and off.

For suggestions on how to increase speed, make a search on the Forum (sorry I dont have a list of linked posts, maybe someone can suggest a couple of posts).

Here a general one:

Dorico 5 extremely slow

The reason that dragging the notes up and down with the mouse is faster than going step by step with the keyboard is that you are only performing a single edit when you release the mouse button. When you use the keyboard shortcuts, each pitch you move is a discrete edit that involves all the required reprocessing. The usual advice applies: make sure you only have one tab open, and one window. If you’ve been working with multiple tabs or windows open, close all but the one you’re working on, and…

[FredGUnn]

@Stefan_B

My machine is certainly not the newest. Intel Core i7. 32 GM RAM. Windows 10 still.

Which i7? I mean those have been around since 2008 so with a very early I7, it could be almost 20 years old by now! Where does it fall on CPU Benchmark? When you run the 1000 bar condensing test that @Christian_R linked to above and look in your application.log files, what sort of times are you seeing?