i believe you can see these 3 screenshots by right clicking them, if not please let me know.
here's the problem, no matter how i configure sonar i can not get it to run smoothly. the biggest issue is superior drummer misses beats and when i try to add any plugins the entire song gets choppy. i'm sending a copy of this to toontrack as well.
i'm at a loss, ever since i downloaded the last sonar updates everything has been running like crap.
i have rolled back sonar to 2017. 05. (23. 6. 0. 24) however, it changed nothing. i'm thinking about reinstalling the latest updates again to see if that helps.
the photos i attached are the settings with both ASIO4ALL and quad-capture. doesn't matter which one i use i have the same results.
i gotta tell ya, i'm at a loss. i spend all my time trying to get things to work so i don't play any music. it's awful.
i appreciate anyone's ideas and time.

Hi. Regarding missing notes in SD. Try increasing the "prepare using ... ms" in Preferences to 500 (or even more)
All the best.

i'm sorry, i don't know what that means. i looked in preferences but found nothing like "ms"

Latency is delay between each device on your computer. The reason millseconds/microseconds are used is because this is how things are calculated in the digital world.  A low latency ASIO sound driver can be used to "speak directly" to your sound interface, rather than go through the Windows Audio Subsystem firstly. Essentially it means a faster response time between what gets put in and what comes out.
 
 

Samples are used for ease. 
 
This should be displayed under sound device in Preferences.
 
23ms is 1024 samples at 44.1Khz/16-bit. Add on time for input and output. Which approximates it to be about 50-60ms overall.
 
samples/sample rate = delay time 
 
P.S. You may want to get yourself a dedicated sound interface.
 

joey90405
i'm sorry, i don't know what that means. i looked in preferences but found nothing like "ms"

 

ah!

There are settings in SuperiorDrummer as well, whether to preload in memory or no.
When I load the lot of Avatar drumset, with all bleed stuff it takes 1.5 GB.
 
With 16 GB ram you can do that.

thanks so much for your replies. i do have a dedicated sound card, it's a Roland quad-capture.
the problem is nothing seems to be working like it used to.
i'm wondering if there is something i can or should do to make my computer run better. i never have the anti virus running while recording, i have all the windows sounds disabled. as far as i know, that's all i need to do.
i'm at the end of my tether with this.

I wouldn't be running any TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident)  program like antivirus especially if no network is present when you are recording.  Why are using ASIO4All and not one of these? 
 
https://www.roland.com/global/support/by_product/quad-capture/updates_drivers/
 
Anyway had a quick look through the manual. What are your recording settings and ASIO buffer settings. Mine is set to 23ms (1024 samples) at 44.1Khz/16-bit. 
 
Edited for clarity.