Are these that same in-house developers that destroyed Gigastudio?  IMO in-house drivers from Tascam is a serious liability.

Please oh please Craig, implore the to revive the FW-18xx series drivers moving forward.
 
Even thought I now use my RME as primary interface, using my FW-1884 as an interface for remote recordings would be really cool as it at least looks like a console. 

vintagevibe
Are these that same in-house developers that destroyed Gigastudio?

No. You might want to ask Garritan, who bought the technology, why they haven't continued to develop Gigastudio.
 

IMO in-house drivers from Tascam is a serious liability.

 
Seriously? Having third party companies thousands of miles away that split their resources among multiple clients is less of liability than hiring a team of in-house software developers dedicated solely to a company's products?
 
I'm not passing judgement on the new drivers, I haven't used them yet. I'm pointing out that TASCAM is bringing development in-house. Most people realize that has far more potential for timely updates than relying on outside companies and working around their schedules. It also means these drivers will be tested extensively with Sonar, which not all companies do.

Anderton
" The best I've seen is RME, which can hit a little over 5 ms due to the really low safety buffer they use (good drivers). 

 
Little bit under, actually.
Mine shows 4.6 RTL (2.1 in, 2.5 out) with a UCX through USB2
44100, 64 sample buffer size.

Just out of curiosity, is that the reported latency, or did you use something like CEntrance's software to test it? I don't think there's no question that RME's drivers are excellent, but I believe it's important to know exactly what the various specs really mean. 
 
This comparison chart is two years old, and mostly involves PCI and Firewire, but it's still interesting and there are posts that extend for a while. The one clear conclusion is that USB and FireWire are not as good as PCI.

72 audio tracks on the current project, not a lot of VI or fx.
But I get that on pretty much everything.
 
Another has 40 tracks, EZD2, Alchemy, Dim Pro, a couple pro channel modules on most tracks, 7 group busses, Ozone 5 on the Master.
 
Another with 68 tracks, Rapture, Dim Pro, Garritan, similar setup, fewer busses 
 
 
...reported latency in Sonar prefs

I just noticed your specs - an i7 at 4.5 GHz probably doesn't hurt 

I'm sure that has a LOT to do with it, too
 
Bottom line, everything I throw at it performs great with no lag on anything.
 
Once I get a bunch over 100 tracks, "Play" after hitting the enter key is a couple secs, but that's about it. 
But I typically stay well under that.

rodreb
If only they would make an interface with 16 to 24, line level, TRS inputs,  for easy interfacing to a mixer.

I guess they were watching this thread, and work really fast. 

Jeff M.
I'm sure that has a LOT to do with it, too
 
Bottom line, everything I throw at it performs great with no lag on anything.
 
Once I get a bunch over 100 tracks, "Play" after hitting the enter key is a couple secs, but that's about it. 
But I typically stay well under that.

Yeah, I can get a hundred tracks too with the V-Studio...but not at anywhere near those kind of latencies. I have to goose it up to a 256 or even 512 sample buffer, and there are significant safety buffers added on top of that. That's one reason I'm keen to see what TASCAM can do, given that I can still use the V-Studio control surface for the faders and such.