Been a couple of years since I posted.  I only use Sonar 8.5 Producer for legacy projects now - I migrated to Cubase - but those legacy projects feel awfully clunky on Win 7 64bit and crash a lot.  Is X3 likely to be a smoother ride when loading these old projects?
 
(bonus question 1 - I have all the plugins I could wish for, presume I'm ok just to go for the basic X3)?
 
(bonus question 2 - is EuCon stable now in X3 and works in both 32 and 64 bit versions?)
 
Win 7 64 bit, i7 4930, 64gb RAM, RME Babyface

X3E is extremely stable for me and I think that is the general consensus.
 
I have not tried it with 8.5 projects however I suspect any stability issues that may occur would probably be down to plugins or Windows maintenance not being up to date, or firmware/drivers needing to be upgraded.
 
I would recommend keeping your plugins 64 bit (try and dump 32 bit) and making sure you are on the latest versions.
 
If you upgrade you can always revert to 8.5 if you want to as long as you remember to back up your projects before you open them in 8.5. Doing a full backup of your system is advisable before any upgrade.
 
If you really have big problems with stability maybe it's time for a reinstall of Windows, although bare in mind I have no idea what your stability issues are (normally these can be diagnosed and fixed).
 
Cheers...

I really don't get the 32-bit hate. In my opinion the drivers* should purely be a) plug-in availability, and b) memory (>4GB) needs.
 
If neither of those drivers apply to you, you'll have great success in SONAR 32-bit.
 
I stayed in 8.5 for a long time, until I tried a plug-in I wanted to use and it didn't work in 8.5 but worked perfectly in my unused copy of X1. I figured it was time... X3 has been very stable for me. Yes, 32-bit.
 
 
* drivers = reasons to move 

Thanks Alex - it's literally for opening and mostly exporting old projects, and making that process hopefully a little less painful.  Deffo no need for a windows re-install, Cubase 7 and PT10 both running like a charm!
 
Frankly for $20 for the basic upgrade from jrrshop, it's no great loss if it doesn't work out, regardless.

No 32 bit hate. Simply put not using an extra abstraction layer to translate from 32 bit to 64 improves stability, scalability and performance. I'm sure in some scenarios 32 bit may work fine. I can't see why anybody would want to use 32 bit Sonar myself if they have more than 4gb of memory and have 64 bit plugins to take advantage of. Also I suspect testing of most products is done mainly on 64 bit nowadays.

Craig was saying there could be issues with a virtual driver or something installed with cubase that might interfere, that might need sorting afterwards not sure of the full detail myself.

Cheers..

I wasn't pointing a finger specifically at you, Alex. :-)

CakeAlexS
Craig was saying there could be issues with a virtual driver or something installed with cubase that might interfere, that might need sorting afterwards not sure of the full detail myself.

Cubase installs a generic ASIO driver. It doesn't appear to do any harm but if you don't have an audio interface turned on when you load Sonar, Sonar will load that and then you'll have to cancel out, maybe change the assignment to your master bus, re-open , etc. No big deal, just a minor annoyance on occasion.

As to 64-bit...I think the 64-bit OS runs better in general, so that has a "happiness trickle-down effect" to the programs running under it.
 

noiseboy
Been a couple of years since I posted.  I only use Sonar 8.5 Producer for legacy projects now - I migrated to Cubase - but those legacy projects feel awfully clunky on Win 7 64bit and crash a lot.  Is X3 likely to be a smoother ride when loading these old projects?
 
(bonus question 1 - I have all the plugins I could wish for, presume I'm ok just to go for the basic X3)?
 
(bonus question 2 - is EuCon stable now in X3 and works in both 32 and 64 bit versions?)
 
Win 7 64 bit, i7 4930, 64gb RAM, RME Babyface

1.  If your old projects are from a 32-bit Sonar 8.5.3 install, you might try opening them in a 32-bit X3 install, if they don't open cleanly in 64-bit X3.  I would consider doing this if I had a bunch of 32-bit plugins that were being flaky being loaded in 64-bit X3 using either BitBridge (comes with X3), or JBridge (3rd-party bridging software).  Any of your 32-bit plugins should open up just fine in a 32-bit Sonar, whether that's X3 or 8.5.3, as far as the plugins are concerned, and avoiding bridging software may be a good idea, though some folks never had problems running in a mix of 32/64 bit software.
 
2.  You could keep your 8.5.3 Sonar installed, as it will live cheerfully along side of a Sonar X3 install, in case you have issues getting them open in X3 for whatever reason.
 
I thought I had a third thing, but my brain has gone down to fix some lunch, so it is no longer available.
 
Hope the above helps, 
 
Bob Bone
 

3.  Got it.  If Windows is not running at current maintenance levels, you could experience some weird crashes, so you might might to make sure that it is up to speed through Windows Update.  In addition, there may well be device drivers and/or firmware that might need updating for Windows 7.  I normally go to the various manufacturer's web sites for those, rather than rely on Windows updates.
 
And now, the rest of me is heading down to lunch,
 
Bob Bone