I spoke too soon. My latest project with 30 instances of Dune 2 in instrument tracks got hosed. I tried various things to try to revive it, e.g. open a simple project so that I'd get sound, then open the "bad" project as a 2nd project loaded. X3 pauses indefinitely, then when I click on something I get: "An unhandled win32 exception has occurred in SONARSTD.exe". For kicks, I chose to debug (I have Visual Studio), and I get this in Visual Studio: "Unhandled exception at 0x00007FFA0961961A (mfc110u.dll) in SONARSTD.exe: 0xC000041D: An unhandled exception was encountered during a user callback."
 
I'm open to getting an audio interface, but I don't know if I can go through the hell and disappointment of trying to get it to work. After I upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1 my UM-1 MIDI interface and Tascam US-322 audio interface stopped working. I haven't been able to get them working again, even with latest drivers.
 
Also, I tried Bitwig as an alternate DAW. Sure it's stable, but it has none of the features I need. I'm stuck. Thinking of taking up the ukulele. 

And I'm still having issues, even when using the Tascam US-322 audio interface, btw. X3 crashes when I try to add 20+ instrument tracks with Dune 2 as the VSTi. The most recent crash resulted in the fault reporter popping up. Here's the actual URL I can check on for status on the problem: http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Contact/Problem-Report-Status?id=30368&email=mleghorn@comcast.net
 
The associated project is completely hosed. Attempts to start the audio "engine" result in very nasty cracking noise. I managed to "revive" the project by deleting all but one instrument track.
 
What is wrong with my system?
 
ASUS i7 laptop, 12 GB RAM, Windows 8.1, Tascam US-322 audio interface, Sonar X3 Studio (latest version), M-Audio Key Studio 49 (connected by USB).

That's a lot of cup-hungry tracks. Have you tried freezing at least some of them?

Thanks for the advice Craig. I'm going to stick with the order for the US-366 for now. I'll address the MIDI interface issue later, as it's not a high priority.
 
As for sound quality of the digital out of my sound card: it's perfect -- nothing can top it. For what it's worth, it's Realtek HD, and it supports up to 192000 Hz / 24-bit. My audio system downstream of the digital out (Burson Audio Conductor, HD800, Cardas Clear cable) gives the whole picture. If the sound isn't perfect, I hear it :-)

mleghorn
As for sound quality of the digital out of my sound card: it's perfect -- nothing can top it. For what it's worth, it's Realtek HD, and it supports up to 192000 Hz / 24-bit. My audio system downstream of the digital out (Burson Audio Conductor, HD800, Cardas Clear cable) gives the whole picture. If the sound isn't perfect, I hear it :-)

Yes, I was referring to the analog out of your sound card, so of course you'd want to use the digital out. As long as there's no significant jitter one digital out should be as good as any other.

johnnyV
Tascam seems to be still struggling with drivers. 

Well, I've been beating up the new drivers for the US-4x4 pretty heavily...if nothing else they're certainly much better than the ones in the V-Studio. I agree that previous generations of TASCAM drivers were problematic, but apparently TASCAM thought so too as they're now doing drivers in-house. And of course, TASCAM tests the drivers extensively with SONAR. Granted the interfaces are quite new, but at least here, it's so far so good.

I'd advise calling tech support first. I'd be willing to bet that your project will play back just fine on most systems where basic issues have been addressed to improve performance with real-time streaming audio. A loud click and all meters showing red is almost certainly a hardware problem; if not, it's a plug-in problem. I don't believe Dune 2 and the Valhalla reverb are unusually CPU intensive, but virtual instruments push a computer much harder than audio tracks.
 
 
Try opening SONAR and putting in something like six instances of Rapture, six instances of Dimension Pro, and a few Breverb reverbs. What happens?
 
Also there are a variety of issues with laptops that work against performance:
 

• Wi-fi and network adapters need to be off
• Power-saving features need to be turned off because they throttle back the CPU
• The power plan should set the CPU to 100%
• Drivers loaded for functions you don't need, like the drivers to transfer audio to televisions, can impact performance to a huge degree

 
Have you tried running at the longest possible latency to see if things work? Then you can work backward from there. 
 
There are programs like LatencyMon that can show exactly what's going on insider your computer that 's taking up power. There may be startup programs you don't need or drivers for peripherals that are irrelevant but are loaded anyway.
 
Your project is almost certainly not what what's being hosed, unless it's having problems with a particular plug-in; your computer is likely what's being hosed, so fixing the problem requires finding out what's going on with your system. Tech support can walk you through some things to consider. There are also a ton of threads in this forum where people have had similar problems and fixes were arrived at eventually - use google to do a site search on latency, Latency monitor, and wi-fi...see what shows up.

Thanks to everyone for all of your input on this issue -- Thanks Craig for making me suspicious of other devices and drivers that might not being playing well.
 
I believe I've found the culprit: my M-Audio Keystation 49 keyboard. I'm able to start up all of the supposedly hosed projects as long as I don't have the keyboard plugged in.
 
Go figure. This is all the more reason I need to find a MIDI interface that works with my system. I've ordered the EMU MIDI / USB cable. I've got my fingers crossed.
 
On another note (pun intended), the Tascam US-366 exceeds my expectations. Not only does it work fine with X3, it's an improvement over my on-board sound card. When listening to music on my sound system, which uses the optical out from the sound card or US-366, I'm noticing more detail, space, and dynamics in the recordings. This is huge to me. Best $200 I've ever spent!
 
Thanks,
Mike

Just in case - it might be worth running Regedit and doing a 'Find' for the string ASIO4ALL, in case the uninstall didn't delete all the pieces.
 
I dimly recall at least one occasion in the past where an older release of it had left some things behind - believe it was in the current user keys, but if you click on Computer (high-level node in registry hive navigation tree) and then do the find it will search the whole registry for any occurrences of that string.
 
Bob Bone
 

Bob,
 
When I bypass all effects I get sound when I play.  When I hit 'E' again to enable effects, I get no sound. I can toggle back and forth and I always get the same results. Maybe we're getting somewhere? 
 
Driver Mode: ASIO
ASIO Reported Latencies:
Input: 10.9 msec, 524 samples
Output: 16.8 msec, 808 samples
Total Roundtrip: 27.8 msec, 1332 samples
ASIO buffer size -- I couldn't find the value for this in my Tascam interface, but to the right of the Buffer Size slider (disabled) it says: 5.3 msec, 256 samples
 
Thanks,
Mike

When the audio issues go away when the effects are all bypassed, it is a big clue that one or more of the effects that are loaded in the project are meant to be used for mixing and not for recording.
 
Some effects use something called 'look ahead processing' or otherwise chew up a bunch of CPU to do their thing, and these are designed for use once you begin mixing, because they really spike DPC latency.
 
I suppose one of the effects could also just be problematic, but the above is the usual explanation.
 
Please list all of the effects loaded into this particular project.
 
Bob Bone
 

i went back for a quick cruise from the beginning of the thread.
 
Please list all loaded effects and soft-synths for this project.  
 
Thanks, 
 
Bob Bone
 

I'm using the following effects:
 
BlueTubes BrickWall BW2s-3 -- in the Pro Channel FX Chain for the Master buss
Three busses with Valhalla Room.
 
Btw, I've noticed that if I press play, then stop, then disable the effects ('E'), I hear the endings of the notes that were played. From my naive layman's perspective, it sounds like the sound is stuck when effects are on, and get unstuck when they're turned on.
 
I tried deleting all the effects from the busses, but still have to press 'E' to get sound.

Take some time to verify your routings, even disabling FX "feeding" your master buss. From a cursory run on the last several post it seems you may have an effect with a bad output assigned (check effect chains too).