VE Pro 7 is always Sooooo.... Sloooooow.... Looking for suggestions.

[Nicolas Laget]

Mac Studio 2022
M1 Ultra
128 GB RAM
Nuendo 13
VE Pro 7.3.3610

Response time after each click is multiple seconds.

I hired an LA-based music tech who works with Danny Elfman. Not a slouch. Fantastic guy.
I followed his tips for set up. For example, instead of my initial approach of having one instance of Kontakt per articulation, he recommended loading up more than one articulation in each Kontakt, thereby lowering the number of Kontakts in my server setup.

I am aware of various strategies for lowering the amount of samples that load at start up. He never mentioned that and also really it doesn't matter what loads initially: the goal is to have a symphony orchestra in a box. That's a lot of samples. Even if at launch no samples are loaded, eventually I do want it to work with the entire orchestra playing.

Sadly this is my experience, at rest no less:

Does anyone have any suggestion? What else should I try?

Nicolas Laget