Brynn, many, many times i have used your posts/info to help me along without you even being aware! When i saw this thread, i was looking for a solution myself, and happened to find something that worked for me. You really know much more about inkscape than i will ever forget - how goes the saying..?...

Thank for the welcome, Brynn! Your assumption is pretty much correct, and Mathieu147 explained and answered your questions, i think. Two additions: you should not have to worry about setting the number of threads too high, inkscape resets it to the max if you go too high (i set 16, just to try, rest...

worked partially for me: go to inkscape preferences, go to Filters, set number of threads to whatever your processor can handle. I set it to 8, restart. then clearly better performance while doing anything on a canvas with objects that have filters. to compare: before, after 10 minutes of non respon...