Highly composite numbers

Jelly, 15 bytes

,®ÆDL€ṛ©0>/?µƓ#

For input n, this prints the first n highly composite numbers.

For n = 20, it takes less than two seconds on Try it online!

How it works

,®ÆDL€ṛ©0>/?µƓ#  Main link. No implicit input.

            µ    Push the chain to the left on the local link stack.
             Ɠ   Read an integer n from STDIN.
              #  Execute the chain for k = 0, 1, 2, ..., until it returned a truthy
                 value n times. Return the list of matches.

,®               Pair k with the value in the register (initially 0).
  ÆD             Compute the divisors of k and the register value.
    L€           Count both lists of divisors.
           ?     If
         >/        k has more divisors than the register value:
      ṛ©             Save k in the register and return k.
        0          Else: Return 0.

Alternate version, 13 bytes (non-competing)

While the below code worked in the latest version of Jelly that precedes this challenge, the implementation of M was very slow, and it did not comply with the time limit. This has been fixed.

ÆDL®;©MḢ’>µƓ#

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How it works

ÆDL®;©MḢ’>µƓ#  Main link. No implicit input.

          µ    Push the chain to the left on the local link stack.
           Ɠ   Read an integer n from STDIN.
            #  Execute the chain for k = 0, 1, 2, ..., until it returned a truthy
               value n times. Return the list of matches.

ÆD             Compute the divisors of k.
  L            Count them.
   ®;          Append the count to the list in the register (initially 0 / [0]).
     ©         Save the updated list in the register.
      M        Obtain all indices the correspond to maximal elements.
       Ḣ       Retrieve the first result.
        ’>     Subtract 1 and compare with k.
               This essentially checks if the first maximal index is k + 2, where
               the "plus 2" accounts for two leading zeroes (initial value of the
               register and result for k = 0).

05AB1E, 15 14 bytes

The input in zero-indexed. That means that n = 0 gives 1, n = 1 gives 2, etc. Code:

$µ>DÑgD®›i©¼}\

Explanation:

$               # Pushes 1 and input
 µ              # Counting loop, executes until the counting variable is equal to input
  >             # Increment (n + 1)
   DÑ           # Duplicate and calculate all divisors
     gD         # Get the length of the array and duplicate
       ®        # Retrieve element, standardized to zero
        ›i  }   # If greater than, do...
          ©     #   Copy value into the register
           ¼    #   Increment on the counting variable
             \  # Pop the last element in the stack

Calculates n = 19, which should give 7560 in about 10 seconds.

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Uses CP-1252 encoding.

MATL, 26 24 bytes

~XKx`K@@:\~s<?@5MXKx]NG<

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The current largest number of divisors found is kept in clipboard K. Highly composite numbers (HCN) are kept directly on the stack. A loop keeps testing candidates to HCN. When one is found it is left on the stack, and clipboard K is updated. The loop exits when the desired number of HCN have been found.

~         % take input implicitly (gets stored in clipboard G). Transform into a 0 
          % by means of logical negation
XKx       % copy that 0 into clipboard K, and delete
`         % do...while
  K       %   push largest number of divisors found up to now
  @       %   push iteration index, i: current candidate to HCN
  @:      %   range [1,...,i]
  \       %   modulo operation
  ~s      %   number of zeros. This is the number of divisors of current candidate
  <       %   is it larger than previous largest number of divisors?
  ?       %   if so: a new HCN has been found
    @     %     push that number
    5M    %     push the number of divisors that was found
    XKx   %     update clipboard K, and delete
  ]       %   end if
  N       %   number of elements in stack
  G<      %   is it less than input? This the loop condition: exit when false
          % end do...while implicitly
          % display all numbers implicitly