If there are some that you could Group into a single object? That
should speed up rendering.

Roughly how many shapes are do you have, and what exactly are you doing that
causes your shapes to redraw, and how are you changing colour (eg change
Colorindex, RGB-color, customize palette)

FWIW, I don't have any problem with say 1,000 shapes on a sheet in my old
slow system, except notably shapes with 2-color diagonal gradient fill's
which are very slow to redraw (even in more modern systems).

The application settings you mention are unlikely to help, disabling
calculation or events will do nothing in this respect (unless some event
directly leads to a redraw). Disabling screen updating can help if changing
things in a loop though, depending on context, can actually make the problem
worse if when re-enabled causes an unnecessary redraw. On which point, are
you by chance toggling screenupdating on/off in some loop - if so ensure you
don't.

Regards,
Peter T