Slow combo dropdown in grid

I have a dropdown combobox in my grid. It works fine when thte list is short. However, when the dropdown list is several thousand long, it takes several seconds for the list to pop-up - everytime I pop-up the list.

Is there a way to "virtually" load the list - similar to grids?

Or, is there a way to pre-load the list - rather than every time I pop-up the list?

Thanks for your help,
Vahe

More info...

The same sized list (5000 records) in an ASP combo box comes up instantaneously.

Is it posiible to imbed an ASP combo box in a grid cell/column?

You can improve a combo (or list) performance using a more simple item template (AW.Templates.Cell) -

list.setItemTemplate(new AW.Templates.Cell);

There will be virtual rendering for the list/combo in the future but currently it is available only for the grid control.