Slow performance with condensing

Dorico
1

I am seeing what I would describe as poor performance from Dorico 6.1.10.6078 on a standard large orchestral piece with condensing enabled. I’ll post project statistics below but I have a very capable system running Windows 11 (4 GHz, 6-core AMD Ryzen with 64 GB of RAM). Even switching between write and engrave modes takes about 12 seconds, and this is with no changes, no system activity, and no other apps open.

I understand that condensing is a compute-intensive feature by nature, but waiting 10+ seconds every time I need to make an adjustment in write mode for a piece not even 15 minutes long seems borderline unusable. I’ve read some other posts that suggest locking layout may help. In my tests, the performance improvement seems minimal. Are there any other suggestions on how to improve Dorico’s performance when navigating between Write and Engrave modes with condensing enabled?

Project Statistics

Statistics from MyProject

Flows: 1
Players: 32
Pages: 56
Instruments: 36

MyProject

Staves: 27
Systems: 57
Bars: 224
Frames: 4155
Empty frames: 1520
Non-empty frames: 2635
Duration: 13′57″

Notes: 17713
Grace notes: 18
Rests: 1875
Bar rests: 1520
Tuplets: 793

Clefs: 56
Octave lines: 40
Key signatures: 3
Time signatures: 1
Holds and pauses: 1
Cues: 0
Repeat markers: 0
Repeat endings: 0
Slash regions: 0
Bar repeat regions: 0

Dynamics: 3002
Slurs: 2084
Horizontal lines: 0
Vertical lines: 12
Playing techniques: 113
Ornaments: 0
Trills: 13
Glissandos: 10
Guitar bends: 0
Arpeggios: 16
Pedal lines: 12
Harp pedal changes: 0
Figured bass: 0

Staff-attached text: 9
System-attached text: 0
Immediate tempos: 9
Gradual tempos: 4
Lyrics: 0
Chord symbols: 0
Rehearsal marks: 15
Comments: 0
Percussion legends: 2
Markers: 0

Flow 1

Staves: 27
Systems: 57
Bars: 224
Frames: 4155
Empty frames: 1520
Non-empty frames: 2635
Duration: 13′57″

Notes: 17713
Grace notes: 18
Rests: 1875
Bar rests: 1520
Tuplets: 793

Clefs: 56
Octave lines: 40
Key signatures: 3
Time signatures: 1
Holds and pauses: 1
Cues: 0
Repeat markers: 0
Repeat endings: 0
Slash regions: 0
Bar repeat regions: 0

Dynamics: 3002
Slurs: 2084
Horizontal lines: 0
Vertical lines: 12
Playing techniques: 113
Ornaments: 0
Trills: 13
Glissandos: 10
Guitar bends: 0
Arpeggios: 16
Pedal lines: 12
Harp pedal changes: 0
Figured bass: 0

Staff-attached text: 9
System-attached text: 0
Immediate tempos: 9
Gradual tempos: 4
Lyrics: 0
Chord symbols: 0
Rehearsal marks: 15
Comments: 0
Percussion legends: 2
Markers: 0

2

Conventional wisdom is that you shouldn’t turn on condensing until you’re in the engraving stage.

I suggest using one of the other view modes (such as galley/scroll view) for any subsequent data changes.

You’re not wrong that this is one of the weaknesses for Dorico, whereby things slow down for large files, as well as condensing. But as I said, you should really only turn it on to then engrave the piece after it’s finished.

3

One common way to deal with this is to open a 2nd window for your project and keep one in write mode and the other in engrave mode. No more mode switching, and works especially well with two monitors.

Anecdotally, this seems like a long time for a project of this size. I’ve had less issue switching modes in much larger files. I could be wrong, but maybe there’s something else slowing things down.

4 Likes
4

@Romanos, agree, and that is what I have done. However, only in condensing mode can you spot oddities that must be corrected in write mode such as dynamic grouping and others which can render undesirable effects and are only detectable when condensed. It also seems like the greatest lag occurs when switching from Engrave mode to Write mode where the view is galley; page view in Write mode is quick when switching.

@AConstantino, that’s a neat tip. How does it work when needing to save the file when open in Write mode? Does that change get picked up by the second window displaying Engrave mode?

5

Yes: this is the same file and the displayed content will be automatically refreshed.

1 Like
6

Yes, everything you do in write mode is reflected in the engrave mode window. So it lets you make changes and see the condensed results in real time without switching modes.

2 Likes
7

Cool tip, never knew this. Thanks!