quick question on mastering

In the mixdown phase when rendering to wav, in high speed mode, I don’t see any indicators in compressor, limiter and maximizer- does that mean they are diasabled? Do I need to mixdown in real time to engage the plugins?

No, the effects are included in both offline and online renders.

If you tick the box Update Display on the Export Audio dialog, I think you will see compressor activity and the cursor will move along the time line