Any way to prevent Traktor from lagging?

this is the first time I'm hearing something about large collection causing lag during normal usage.

Same here, never heard of such thing…

It makes no sense at all. My music database is 669 GB and my Collection.nml file is just 19 Mb. You say yours is 500 GB and your xml is 100 MB? How is this possible?

My computer is fairly older than yours, but i have an i7, not an i5 (maybe this is the problem? not good enough CPU?). And when i close Traktor it takes 10 seconds (12 maximum) to close.

So i assume that your system (Windows?) is totally misconfigured (wrong settings, lot of useless background tasks and services, insufficient latency etc etc)… either way, nothing to do with Traktor itself.

Yes my entire collection is fully analyzed, to the smallest detail!
I have 17.550 files, about 90% of them are .flac and 10% .wav. I do not use mp3's.
I do have over 150 playlists, actually all my live sets from festivals, dj sets from clubs and outdoor events, radio shows, everything!

Now, about NI recommendations, i am sure that you did what necessary, but just in case, here are few things that consider a must-do for best audio performance in Windows. Make sure that all of them are done correctly and then try Traktor again:

1 - Optimize Power Settings

Most windows computers, as standard, will try to manage the performance to give the laptop the longest possible battery life. This means that the computer isn’t running at it’s best performance, which isn’t ideal for any kind of audio performances.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on Power Options
3. Select "high performance"
4. Click on "change plan setting"
5. Set the display’s sleep time as well as the computer’s sleep time to Never.
6. Click on "change advanced power settings"
7. Click the + next to Hard Disk, then click the + next to "Turn Off Hard Disk After"
8. In the text field, type Never
9. Click on the + next to Processor power management, then click the + next to Minimum processor state
10. Type 100% in the text field
11. Click Apply, then OK
12. Click Save Changes

2 - Disabling Screen Saver

If you are DJing for a long period of time and don’t touch your laptop you run the risk of the screen saver starting. The screen saver can cause DJ applications to drop out and lag so it’s always best practice to disable the screen saver.

1. Right-click on your Desktop and click "Personalize"
2. Click on Lock screen in the left pane, then click the Screen saver settings link in the right pane.
3. Select None, then click OK

3 - USB Power Management

Windows as default will monitor and control the power sent over any USB connection. This monitoring takes up bandwidth over the connection from your computer to the decks. By disabling the USB power management, you free up that bandwidth to allow it to be used for more important data transfers, such as faster audio latency.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on Device Manager
3. Double-click on Universal Serial Bus Controllers
4. Double-click on the first USB Root Hub item
5. Click on the Power Management Tab
6. Uncheck the box that says “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” and click OK
7. Do this for all USB Root Hub and Generic USB Hub items

4 - Optimize the Hard Drives

Windows will often try and compress data on your hard discs. This saves storage space but makes your drives slower for reading and writing audio files. For this reason you need to ensure that Windows isn’t compressing data on any hard drive, especially those that you are playing music from. Make sure you repeat this step for any drives you are using with DJ software.

1. Navigate to “My PC”
2. Right click on the hard drive that you use to store your audio and choose Properties
3. Make sure “Compress this drive to save disk space” is unchecked
4. Click Apply, then OK

5 - Processor Scheduling

The default setting for the processor is to focus on the active programs running on the PC. However, for audio related tasks, this is not ideal at all. You can significantly boost the performance of the audio by changing the processor to focus on background tasks. This setting can change the performance of your PC in other programs, but for DJ and Audio related tasks this is a great change to make.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on System
3. Select "Advanced System Settings"
4. Click the Advanced Tab
5. Under "Performance", click the Settings button
6. When the Performance Options window pops up, click the Advanced tab
7. Under "Processor Scheduling", select Background Services
8. Click Apply, then OK
9. Click OK to close System Properties
10. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect

Note: There are many more things to do of course, but the above are consider as basic. Try them, and you will see the difference. However, if the difference will be significant or not, it depends on other factors too. For example, do not expect miracles on computers with weak CPU's. Yet, even on those, you will see some improvement.