So long(ish) story short, I bought Scrivener 3 around a week ago, it worked nicely for a while, but now I have some rather heinous input lag when I type. It’s okay if I slow my typing down to say 40wpm, but if I write at my normal speed of around 95wpm, the lag is severe, almost a full second before the word pops up on the screen.
It’s incredibly distracting, obviously.
Anyhow, none of my other apps have any kind of lag whatosever, and I have the same issue in a file of 100,000 words, as well as in a fresh file.
My PC is a gaming rig, so has a potent spec, and I’ve checked my task manager and the RAM/CPU is nowhere near maxed out at any point, hovering at around 30-40%.
I’ve tried all the fixes I can think of (turning it off and on again, throwing it out of a window, etc.) but to no avail.
When it comes to accessing the files Scrivener needs in the context of a project, many issues comes from an antivirus interfering…
Perhaps see if whitelisting Scrivener in your AV’s options solves your issue.
Another thing that can strangely cause scrivener to lag or mouse movements to stutter, is the use of outlined font in a project. (Don’t ask me why, but it so does for me – and it only takes a small chunk of text using an outlined font anywhere in the project for things to go sideways.) Although this is likely not your case, since you mentioned the issue being only recent, and throughout a few projects.
I find if have computer win 11 run continuously then scrivener starts to lag . If close and reboot computer then response is lightening quick. May want to consider automatic shutdown for scriv. Can set in options>general>startup
One thing I don’t see mentioned in the list of things you’ve tried is reverting to factory default settings. Here’s what I would do:
Go into File ▸ Options...
Click the Manage button at the bottom, and select the “Save options to file” command, toward the very top. Put this file aside somewhere safe, and then click the Defaults button to reset everything.
I would restart the software at this point, after making one change to settings. Disable the General: Startup: Reopen projects that were open on quit setting. This will ensure a clean session upon reload.
When the new project template window appears, select “Blank” as a starting point for a test project.
At this point we have very simple settings, nothing potentially complicating things like massive graphics in backdrops in the editor, or settings that might complicate drawing rates, like Page View, or unusual fonts.
Give that a spin for a bit, you can do some writing with the intention of dragging this binder item into your main project, after testing.
Thanks for your suggestions guys, I’ve tried them all and now only some of my files have the input lag, so that’s progress! I suppose it’s something somewhere on my PC causing me grief, because Scrivener on my laptop seems to work cleanly enough, which is perplexing because my laptop itself is ancient and slow (much like the owner.)
Thanks again, I’ll report back if I find the silver bullet that fixes it completely.
