Noteperformer 3 and Dorico Pro 2:
When Noteperformer 3 trial stops after 1 hour session, it displays a notification window about it – clicking OK does nothing there. At that point VSTAudioengine2.exe has stopped responding (apparently as being “disabled”), and you can not save your work in Dorico (endless hang). Killing audio engine process won’t allow saving. Happened every time, so I save after every change 
I’m about to try out Noteperformer, so it’s good to know this in advance. It might have taken a while for me to become aware of it on my own, being something of an obsessive-compulsive saver even in normal circumstances.
Auto save saved me few times!
I am definitely impressed by Noteperformer 3 playback. It portrays instruments quite well and is surprisingly good in interpreting score markings. The sound overall is pretty lo-fi, like an LP record but that is actually not a problem. The only problem is that it can’t work with Cubase, which is understandable.
An oddity in Dorico was that it was by default to play normal (unmarked) notes in 85% length, which resulted in staccato all over, I set that to 99% and it sounds more natural.
One other problem is that there is no Hermode tuning or so… so out of tune sometimes.
Yep. Several other folks have mentioned the same thing. Professional detachment? 
If depends on the instrument, and the style of music.
Often “continuous legato” sounds completely unnatural, and is a dead giveaway for “computer rendered music.”
AFAIK NotePerformer is actually a bit smarter than just playing the 85% lengths that Dorico sends to it. It uses the 85% figure as a “marker” that the notes don’t have any special articulation marked in the score and then chooses the gaps between the notes according to the instrument and the tempo. NP “looks ahead” at the playback information from Dorico for 1 second before playing anything, so it knows “what comes next” before it decides how to play each note.
If you set the Dorico playback to 101%, effectively you are telling NotePerformer that everything is marked “legato”. If that’s what you want, there’s nothing wrong with that, but for some real instruments (e.g. low brass) playing that way is physically impossible for humans.
Yes of course, but e.g. trombonists I know can play those pretty smoothly, without emphasizing attack on every note like NP does.