I'm using Sonar X3 and have 14 MIDI tracks controlling a single Battery 4 instance.

For some reason, about midway through my song, some of the drums sounds fail to trigger. It seems random which ones trigger and which ones don't.  The first thing that pops to my mind is polyphony.

Is there a polyphony limit for Battery 4? 
 
If there is a polyphony limit in Battery 4, then what is that limit?  I'm guessing the workaround would be to clone that Battery 4 instance and direct some of the MIDI tracks to the clone?  Is there an easy way to clone a Battery 4 instance, with all settings intact, using Sonar X3?

If there is not a polyphony limit in Battery 4, then what else could be causing the missed notes? Could Sonar X3 have its own polyphony limits when sending MIDI data to a single instance of a soft synth?

This is the first time I have encountered any (apparent) polyphony limits with synths when using Sonar (except of course monophonic synths but that goes without saying).
 
Thanks!

Dropped MIDI notes is often the result of too small a value for "Prepare Using nnn Millisecond Buffers" in Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording. The default in the X series is 250, try 500 (the pre-X series default) or 750.

Okay, I increased from 250 to 750.  It seems to have helped.
 
Does this have any unwanted side effects? 
 
Also, is "Prepare Using Millisecond Buffers" only used during playback?  Or is it also used when rendering (exporting a MIDI project to an audio file)?

No real downside, extreme settings may slow transport start up waiting on the buffer to fill up. The setting is used for all midi playback including export.

Changing "Prepare Using Millisecond Buffers" did not actually fix the problem.
 
What fixed the problem was changing the voice limit in Battery 4 from 32 to 64; I actually had about 50 notes playing at the same time, since some of them were rides and other long-tail notes.
 
The voice limit is the number in the Battery 4 header to the left of the exclamation point.  Click on that value to change it. 
 
Changing the voice limit from 32 to 64 got rid off all of my Battery 4 dropouts.

WOW!  I would like to meet THAT drummer.
 
I have never had more drum notes sounding concurrently than one for each limb of my steadfast fake drummer, and then allowance for tails and such.
 
Still, a VERY small number, compared to 50+
 
Is this the drumming equivalent to Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom"?  :)
 
"Huge timpani's, a 3-d symphony, c'mon baby set those tom toms next to me"....
 
(sorry - it's just a LOT of drum notes, I couldn't resist).  :)
 
Bob Bone
 

Ha ha!  Yes, I know, an octopus. :)
 
At some point I need to force myself to try to create realistic drums.  At some point. 

I have the exact same problem but haven't been able to solve it. This is just a simple hats, kick, snare beat in 100 bpm so nothing advanced. When adding hihat to the mix the snare seem to trigger fully at times, and then sometimes just trigger half the sample, so completely random and it sound like **** of course. No solution as of yet. 
 
- Already changed values in "Prepare Using nnn Millisecond Buffers" in Preferences > MIDI > Playback and Recording. Went from 500 to 750 all the way to 2000 and back.
- I have changed polyphony in Battery to no avail. 32->64 and back.
- Don't believe this to be a DFD-issue either since large sample libraries of 40GB play wonderfully in KONTAKT.
 
Input?

Hello JR, 
 
Actually yes. The solution was to max out the fade (ms) -value in voice groups under setup in Battery 4, so the next sample don't kill off the previous sample triggered from another voice group.