Abstract: The present invention proposes a printing system whereby a supply of sufficient data is assured to the print engine so that the print engine can run continuously and efficiently. The printing system has at least one marking engine capable of printing an image on a media as a transport moves the media past the marking engine. Buffers or sets of buffers hold completely raster image processed pages and interface logic transfers the buffered pages to the marking engine to transfer the image to the media. Buffer management logic controls the buffers so that as the printing system accumulates slack time left over from raster image processing non-complex pages, the slack time is allocated to complex pages to optimize average raster image processing time with speed of the print engine.