Loves X3, but...

Hello everyone
So far X3 gave me all what I wanted in a DAW, I especially appreciate the color customization feature (Finally) and the new pro channel eq. I am very pleased with this version and looking forward to experement with the touch features in the coming months.
However, I am not able to use it for one reason: POPS and CRACKLES
I have a pc with an intel i7 quad with 24 Gb Ram with an SSD main hard drive and several HHDs for samples and an RME Fireface USB sound cards using the ASIO drivers. I mainly do midi recording with lots of virtual instruments. I never had any of these pops and crackles with Sonar X2 (even with very high vst count), but when opening the same projects with the same exact settings for the drivers and such in X3, it seems that X3 is having way much harder time to handle the load. Even when starting from scratch by loading 5 - 6 midi tracks with VSL instruments (or any) and just playing back the sound live by the keyboard Sonar X3 is struggling and pops and clicks start to appear continuously and notes start to disappear and comeback as if I am using my old pc 5 years ago (maybe X3 have a ram management or streaming issues?).
I think X3 is a great improvement in many aspects over X2, but what can I do with lots of great features if the engine can't work flawlessly like the good old X2?
I appreciate if anybody can confirm or deny this issue (hopefully deny it, man i love X3).
 

Thank you for the reply
I am already on X3b after full system reboot. Still the same.

Hello Stevec and thanks for your reply
The buffer is set to 1024, but no matter how low or high it seems not affecting much.
I also noticed that this happens mostly when playing notes for the first time, but when i play a melody several times the pops disappear, but when I introduce new notes to that melody then it comes back. So from the sound of it it should be a buffer problem but again i tried different settings with no luck (and the fact that the same buffer setting is working just fine in X2 makes me suspect that the problem is X3 related).
Thanks.

I have the RME Fireface UFX (USB) and I'm not experiencing any performance problems in X3a. Sorry you are having issues, hope you get them sorted out. My settings:
 
24bit/48kHz
128 Samples
Buffer size: Fast
Round Trip: 7.3 msec
 
Regards,

Have you downloaded and run DPC Latency Checker and/or LatencyMon?
 
Run these with Sonar NOT running, just to get a feel for your system's base ability to handle streaming audio.  You may find some spikes that could be from one or more of your background services or device drivers.
 
Sometimes, folks experience drops and such from things like antivirus software running while using Sonar, or they have wireless adapters enabled (they seem to wreak havoc on latency at times).
 
What are your reported latency values in Preferences?
 
Do you experience these drops and crackles when there are no effects loaded into a project?  (you could start a new project and import a song file - MP3 or WMA and see if it plays back with no issues).
 
Additionally, you could take one of your problematic projects and try hitting 'E' on your computer keyboard to toggle off/on the Bypass All Effects function in Sonar.  If after bypassing all effects your dropouts and crackles go away, that means that one or more of your plugins are causing the drops/crackles.
 
Here is the link to DPC Latency Checker - it's free and FABULOUS:
 
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
 
And here is the link for LatencyMon:
 
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
 
Also, please list your settings for the following:
 
1.  Sample Rate in Sonar
2.  Record Bit-Depth in Sonar
3.  Reported latency values in Sonar
4.  Driver Mode in Sonar
5.  Sample Rate for your audio interface
6.  ASIO Buffer Size for your audio interface (sometimes expressed in number of samples)
 
Please review the above, run the latency detecting programs, and post back, including providing the requested information.
 
I am hoping we can get this sorted out for you, 
 
Bob Bone
 

Hit P (preferences)
Click File on the Left
Click Audio Data Sub category
Set Record Bit Depth to 24. There's no reason to record at a bit depth that exceeds your device.
 
This should help.
 
Also, since you are using RME, you should be aware of DigiCheck (see their downloads page). There are new drivers and version of DigiCheck out for Windows 8.1 btw.
 
You can record all your devices channels to a single file using DigiCheck which saves you a huge amount of overhead. Sonar writes all the tracks to separate files (and reasonably so). If you switch to write the tracks all to one file when making a recording you can dump WAY more data onto the same hard drive. When I'm just recording a gig or a continuous performance, I always use DigiCheck then mix in Sonar.
 
Sonar is great if you need to play back anything that the musicians will monitor as the perform, like soft synths, metronome, or guitar synths. That sort of thing.
 
For me, with my UCX, the interface has EQ, compressors for every channel as well as reverb and delay on busses. It's a complete solution for mixing live.

You might try the following settings, just to start with something that does not push things to perhaps beyond their capacity:
 
Sample Rate 48k
ASIO Buffer Size 128
Record Bit-Depth 24
 
The above are just a starting point.  If the above settings get rid of the cracks and pops, you can start upping the sample rate.
 
One nice thing about the above settings is that they produce a pretty low latency - my input and output latency reported values are 3.9 milliseconds each, and I have a total round trip latency of 7.8 milliseconds.  Your reported values were about 3 times higher than mine.
 
So, how about trying the above and posting back?
 
Bob Bone
 

Did you try turning your sound card output down just a little. That happened to me when I upgraded in 2010 to Producer 8.5.3. (which I am still on, but thinking of upgrading soon).

I am probly way off base here, but when I first fired up X3 and played around. I noticed all of my plugins were rearrainged. I grabbed guitar rig and was plunking away and noticed cracks and pops. after further checking I realized I had the 32 bit version loaded while I was in the 64 bit X3. I swapped it back to Guitar Rig 64 and whalah...no more pops and cracks. I'm sure you have checked this, but just in case....:)

Thanks for all your suggestions, appreciated.
The problem was solved after several tries by doing two things:
1- re-install the sound card drivers.
2- delete the AUD.INI file from the X3 folder.
It seems that X3 was using the AUD.INI file from the X2 folder (or copied it from there).
Everything is working perfectly now, only limitations I am encountering now are due to external hard drives which I can live with for the time being until I upgrade them.
So, thank you all again for your help, and especially dan le for suggesting this method.
 
Have a good day