Hello All!
 
I'm using Kontakt more now and depending on the project size, I often experience stuttering on playback. My CPU runs at about 50% and my RAM at about 50% too. Is the stuttering due to insufficient RAM or my CPU ( system specs below)?
 
Thanks all for your insight!

Hi Daniel. I usually set my audio interface at 128 to 512 to allow for minimal latency when playing various vst's via my midi keyboard. Once I start loading a lot of plug-ins - including various FX plug-ins, I may start hearing some pops/clicks, which usually indicates I'm stressing things out, despite average CPU usage. I'll would then increase my buffer range to higher values, testing to see whether this helps. Usually it does, but at the sacrifice of latency. 
 
If it doesn't help, I'll disable various plug-ins to determine which, if any, may be contributing to a playback issue. 
 
With Kontact, I explored using just one module and loading up various other Kontact modules via the various outputs. I found that this really taxed my system and I ended up just using 1 or more individual Kontact modules. This seems to fair better in terms of the way my system handled it.
 
Hope  that helps a bit?

Possibly a little of both. I5-650 is only 2 cores. 8GB with many Kontakt instruments may not be enough. Before throwing $$ at it. Go here and get Latency Monitor...
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
It will tell you if there is some latency hog in your PC and in general if your PC can handle the task.
Could be a video driver, network driver, audio driver, etc, since you only see 50% usage.
Follow Fabio's advice first.
 
 

I have had that with an instrument in Kontakt that used a lot of disk streaming. Had to change to a faster sample drive.

microapp
Possibly a little of both. I5-650 is only 2 cores.

Actually, I have four cores.

Two cores, four threads (if your specs are correct). You can check for Kontakt disk streaming problems by increasing the preload buffer in your Kontakt instrument settings. If you load a larger portion of the sample in RAM, your disk will have more time to catch up. But I second the suggestion of trying latencymon. 50 percent CPU usage shouldn't cause a problem but if there's a driver that occasionally spikes it can push the system over the edge.

Sanderxpander
Two cores, four threads (if your specs are correct). You can check for Kontakt disk streaming problems by increasing the preload buffer in your Kontakt instrument settings. If you load a larger portion of the sample in RAM, your disk will have more time to catch up. But I second the suggestion of trying latencymon. 50 percent CPU usage shouldn't cause a problem but if there's a driver that occasionally spikes it can push the system over the edge.

Ah thanks! I apologize for my misunderstanding! Loading latencymon as we speak! Just to be clear, I should run latencymon as Sonar is playing, yes?

Run it both with and without Sonar.

If I was in Vegas and placing a bet on your DAW, I'd bet on disk I/O being the bottleneck. Of course, LatencyMon might well identify some other problem, but in the absence of DPC latency measurements my money's on RAM. But don't run out and buy more memory just yet.
 
Within Kontakt, watch the "Memory" window in each instrument's header. If you see that number incrementing, it means the instrument hasn't fully loaded yet. What I often see, especially when there are multiple Kontakt instruments, is hesitation during playback while samples are still loading. Once that "Memory" window stops changing, everything's fine.

bitflipper
If I was in Vegas and placing a bet on your DAW, I'd bet on disk I/O being the bottleneck. Of course, LatencyMon might well identify some other problem, but in the absence of DPC latency measurements my money's on RAM. But don't run out and buy more memory just yet.
 
Within Kontakt, watch the "Memory" window in each instrument's header. If you see that number incrementing, it means the instrument hasn't fully loaded yet. What I often see, especially when there are multiple Kontakt instruments, is hesitation during playback while samples are still loading. Once that "Memory" window stops changing, everything's fine.

Thanks Bitflipper! I do pay attention to Kontakt to make sure everything is loaded before running the project. I think I may just go ahead an go from 8G to 16G of RAM.