Hi guys, I'm throwing this out here on the forum in the hope some of you enlightened Sonar aficionado's can suggest solutions.
 
Firstly CPU usage on this month's update seems overly high comparing to Sept. Working with one of my older projects today, I had to freeze a number of synths to reduce overhead. Currently running at around 42%, which is comparatively high. Selecting to use the new CPU load button - buffer at highest...like full and over the recommended 512 - actually make things worse. I've also tried this CPU load thing on a few other tracks and in each case it ends up running my 8 cores higher and unusable. So I don't know what's going on. I was impressed with the CPU load on last month's (SEPT) update...really low and balanced.
 
Secondly, I've had this 'audio meltdown' for quite a while through a number of Sonar updates. Every now and then - usually at some point during most project work - if I add a vst plug-in - always 64bit - on a bus, I experiencing an audio meltdown...that's what I call it as it's hard to explain...high and low LOUD frequency 'spitting/stuttering' and am usually unable to continue to work on the project. These days, I always save the project before loading a vst on a bus - and can sometimes do this after this meltdown even though audio has dropped out - and close Sonar, restarting and load the project and it's always good to go again. I never have a problem with this particular plug-in again. It can be WAVE, FAB Filters and even Sonar's CA-2 compressor. So like it's not consistently one particular vst...it seems random in this respect. 
 
RME says it's probably software-related. I don't know but it's really concerning for my monitor's health as it's overloading the volume levels when this happens...did I mention it was loud? 
 
Anyone experiencing higher CPU load this month and/or this weird meltdown as it relates to VST insertion on buses? I don't think these issues are related. 
 
Thanks
 
 
 
 
 

I have not noticed either of those issues on my system and I am using the RME UFX.

Years ago I did have something similar to what you are hearing with the audio meltdown when I used a motu ultralite and could never get to the bottom of what caused the issue. I swapped over to RME interfaces and I have never had the problem again.

One thing to note the new feature to spread the load over the cpu cores is only for vst effects and not synths.

thanks for your reply. Yep, I figured that re vst's...it just makes the cpu load worse. 
Yes, the 'meltdown' is a puzzle. 
 
cheers

Are you sure about this load increase? i.e. if you roll back to the 08 release without changing any audio settings does the same project show lower CPU? If you could give us some more details about the project that is exhibiting high load it would be great. Perhaps share the project file with us so we can look at what might be different. 
 
Regarding the second issue, it may be a problem with the plugin you are inserting. 

Hi Noel, thanks for replying. No I haven't rolled back yet. I thought I'd throw it out there to see any responses. I loaded another project I've been working on and it appears high than norm cpu usage, but yes, I'd have to roll back and test it to really get a less subjective observations. How do I share a project file with you, given that it's probably quite high in terms of memory....quite a few wavs?
 
Yes the 2nd issue is perplexing. I initially thought it was some of the Fab Filter plug-ins but they they can't confirm this issue...and it's not just their filters as mentioned. Compressors seem to cause this more often than not. I have no idea how to find out what's going on. So I thought I'd again throw it out here to see if any other members had this happening. 
 
Thanks

Hi Fabio.
Bursts of noise through the Adams....ouch! 
I too am running the RME UFX and have not seen either of these issues. As Karhide mentioned load balancing is only for fx, not synths in the synth Rack, and in some cases will actually use more CPU:

"When not to use plug-in load balancing
Load balancing itself incurs some overhead since internally it subdivides and processes the plug-ins at smaller buffer sizes. If the loads are not unbalanced to start with, this overhead can exceed the benefit."
 
You may have already seen it, but I found the documentation well worth the read:
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=NewFeatures.002.html
 
 
 

Fabio Rubato
Hi Noel, thanks for replying. No I haven't rolled back yet. I thought I'd throw it out there to see any responses. I loaded another project I've been working on and it appears high than norm cpu usage, but yes, I'd have to roll back and test it to really get a less subjective observations. How do I share a project file with you, given that it's probably quite high in terms of memory....quite a few wavs?
 
Yes the 2nd issue is perplexing. I initially thought it was some of the Fab Filter plug-ins but they they can't confirm this issue...and it's not just their filters as mentioned. Compressors seem to cause this more often than not. I have no idea how to find out what's going on. So I thought I'd again throw it out here to see if any other members had this happening. 
 
Thanks

Hi Fabio,
 
If you do find that there is higher CPU you can send us a zip of your project with audio. You can trim it down if necessary by deleting tracks. If its larger than you can send via dropbox or google drive let me know and I can provide an egnyte link for you to upload to.
 
 

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm just going to ride the CPU thing for a while...maybe it's just these couple of older projects. A newer one I'm working on, shows minimal CPU load but of course it's not as loaded as the former 2. 
 
And thanks Noel for offering to have a look at the project...the main one in question is 1.45Gb's, so it's fairly hefty and as mentioned, I'll let it sit for while longer to see if other projects are affected...maybe just imagining it but it's like with last months release, I could notice a more efficient and balanced use of the cores. Finding the time to roll back and compare this is a bit time consuming at the moment.
 
As far as the 'meltdown' thing goes I don't like my chances of figuring this out. Sonar, RME, Win 10, plug-ins? All I know if that various plug-ins placed on a bus will randomly cause this issue to occur and saving the project and re-starting it seems to 'fix' it from occurring..I don't recollect it happening twice in one project, but I'm going to monitor this. It's quite weird and come to think of it, didn't always occur. I don't recall it happening on Win 7. Who knows? Just have to work around it I suppose. 
 
Cheers guys. :-)

When it's doing the audio meltdown, is the app still responsive?  If it's hung then that could be the result of a crash.
In that case running 22.9.1.41 should allow the exception to be visible (dump file/fault report, etc.)
 
 
 
Otherwise, if the app is still responsive, does a toggle of the transport clear things up?
 
Keith

Keith Albright [Cakewalk]
When it's doing the audio meltdown, is the app still responsive?  If it's hung then that could be the result of a crash.
In that case running 22.9.1.41 should allow the exception to be visible (dump file/fault report, etc.)
 
 
 
Otherwise, if the app is still responsive, does a toggle of the transport clear things up?
 
Keith

Hi Keith. Thanks. Apart from this audio garble, I see that the performance bars disappear and the project usually hangs. I sometimes can only just do a save, but more often than not I am unable to do even this...which is why I usually save before inserting anything on the bus...but sometimes I neglect to do this as it's so random. It's strange though that restarting the project with the FX on the bus - saved before 'meltdown' - then works perfectly fine.
 
I don't understand what you mean by 'running 22.9.1.41 should allow the exception to be visible (dump file/fault report, etc.)'?