Finale's performance depends essentially on your system (processor speed, RAM, video card, etc..). There are some minor adjustments you can make that will help its performance.

Things you can do in Finale:

* Turn OFF the message/status bar. On Windows, go to the Window menu and uncheck Status Bar. On Mac, go to View menu and choose "Hide Message Bar".
  
* Have Finale load only the Plug-ins that you use. This can be done by dragging the unwanted plugins out of the "Plugins" folder found in the Finale folder on your Hard Disk.
  
* Turn off "Automatic Music Spacing" and "Automatic Update Layout" in the Edit menu. (Remember to update the layout of your document regularly by using the "Update Layout" option in the Edit menu, and to space your music using MassEdit.)
  
* Play back without the SmartMusic Softsynth soundfont. On Windows, go to the MIDI menu and change the MIDI Output device. On Mac, go to the MIDI menu >> Internal Speaker Playback, and choose QuickTime Playback for example.
  
* If you have a fair amount of lyrics in your document, you could set "Update Smart Hyphens and Word Extensions" to "Manually". (Options menu >> Program options, highlight "View"). Subsequently you'd need only to go to the Lyric menu >> Update Hyphens / Update Word Extensions to update hyphens and word extensions as you edit your piece.
  
* If you are not using lyrics in your document, you could disable "Smart Hyphens" and "Smart Word Extensions". You will find these options in the Options menu >> Document Options under "Lyrics".
  
* Set Human Playback to "None". On Windows, Human Playback is found in the Playback Settings window, which can be accessed by clicking the speaker icon in the Playback Controls. On the Mac, expand the Playback Controls by clicking the triangle to the left of the buttons.

Things you can do on your system:

* On Windows, clean out your Temp files folder when the application is not running. (The "Temp" folder is usually located on your Hard Disk in the Windows folder.)
  
* Reduce the color depth of your display. To get there on Windows, go to the Windows' Control Panels, double click on Display and click on the Settings tab. On Mac OS X, go to the System Preferences and click on Display.
  
* Reduce your screen resolution to 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600. To get there on Windows, go to the Windows' Control Panels, double click on Display and click on the Settings tab. On Mac OS X, go to the System Preferences and click on Display.
  
* Defragment your Hard Drive. (Check the operating system's help files on how to do this.)