There's a Lag in the Text Feeding into the Practice Window
It's normal to experience some lag in the time it takes your text to feed into the Practice Window, depending on your CAT software. Below are some typical delay times:
Total Eclipse™ from Advantage Software™: With the Flush Delay (on the Realtime Tab in User Settings) set at 2000ms, you should expect at least a 2-second lag between the time you stroke a word and when it feeds into the Practice Window. The flow of text should be continuous once it starts.
Case CATalyst™ from Stenograph™: Lag time will depend on the value entered for the "Hold for seconds" setting on the Output to StenoKeys tab of the Options window. By default, this is usually 1 second, but is set to 2 in our setup instructions. Whatever the value is, that will be the delay in seconds between the time you stroke a word and when it should feed into the Practice Window. The flow of text should be continuous once it starts.
DigitalCAT™ from Stenovations™ You should expect a delay of up to 30 seconds for your text to start feeding into the Practice Window from the time you start writing. You may encounter this delay multiple times during an exercise as the software fills and then purges its buffer.
If the lag you experience is significantly longer than expected (particularly with a lag on every word), it is almost always the result of an overloaded computer processor. Here's a quick way to check:
Start a realtime translation, and launch a Realtime Coach™ exercise as you normally do for practice
Before you click Play, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open the Windows Task Manager
Move the Task Manager window to the side so both it and the exercise window are visible (the Task Manager will always stay on top of other windows)
Click the Performance Tab on the Task Manager. You will see a CPU Usage meter on the left that displays the current load on the processor as a proportion of its capacity
Click Play on the exercise, and begin writing as you normally do during practice
While you write, observe the CPU Usage meter in the Task Manager
If the CPU Usage meter reaches 90-100% while you practice, your computer's processor is simply unable to keep up with everything it's being asked to do. This would explain the lag in the text input.
Even if your computer meets or exceeds our minimum system requirements, system performance is governed by how efficiently the software makes use of available hardware resources. We suggest you consult with a computer professional for assistance or advice for resolving performance-related issues.
