It is true that odd as it may seem, I have had DAW's act up in relation to what video card and/or driver I was using, so maybe check what nVidia driver you are using, the Microsoft-supplied one vs. the nVidia-supplied one?
 
If we figure it out, it surely needs to be reported to Bandlab. Because as noted, Studio One Pro works a treat on your system.
 
Chasing rainbows here. What about those other settings on the "sinkin' cash" page? Seems like if the wrong one were selected, Cakewalk could flail around trying to find a nonexistent clock source or whatever.
 
That stuff is over my head; I've always used either the internal clock from my interface or the clock from an Apogee A/D that my friend brought over, and that was handled in the PreSonus driver through the S/PDIF port. No SMPTE or MIDI clocking yet.

Nvida installs a lot of interfering garbage with its package. The simplest way to avoid most is to reinstall drivers choosing "clean install," then only choosing the graphics driver and PhysX. After that check device manager and disable Nvidia's HD audio.

Nvidia also collects telemetry data that it locks from the user that is not as simple to rectify.

mettelus - I did a clean install of the Nvidia driver. It made no difference.

Does anyone know if "Enable Write Caching" should be enabled ON THE HARD DRIVE?
 
Also, I loaded a Cakewalk demo project and it plays perfectly, no hesitation whatsoever. It is 44.1k / 24 bit. I run 48k / 24 bit. Could this possibly be the cause of my issues?

rodreb
Euthymia - I was messing around with different settings tonight and in Sync and Caching I checkmarked Enable Read Caching and Enable Write Caching and BOOM Cakewalk is running with almost no hesitation! I have always been under the impression that you should NOT enable these but, it has certainly helped in my case. It's not perfect, there is still an extremely slight pause when I hit play but, not much at all. (Still, Studio One has no hesitation at all but, I just cannot get comfortable with it).
Anyway, after I discovered this, I came here to post about it and found your post. You must have been reading my mind. Ha ha!
Now, I have no idea why this helped or if it's a horrible no-no to do and will mess something up or something?? I do know, it's making things useable for me.
If anyone knows what this setting does and why I seem to need it enabled, please, let me know. 

As I thought, the hesitation is when Sonar cues up the audio being played and for that an HDD is significantly worse than an SSD, especially when fragmented or in the latter part of its capacity.
 
It's not that Sonar NEEDS an SSD, but to run a system in 2018 without one is just silly.
 
R

Of course I am aware of the benefits of an SSD but, I don't have one so, it's really kind of a moot point. My point is, this system, as is, should be capable of stable and responsive performance. I am just trying to track down and fix the issue at hand. The fact that it runs Studio One with great speed and responsiveness tells me there is no reason why I should not be able to get Cakewalk running equally as well. That said, at some point, if I can't get it figured out, my patience will run out and I will be forced to leave Cakewalk behind and try to learn to love Studio One. I really don't want to have to do that, though. I love Cakewalk and have logged so many years with it that I am totally comfortable with it. 

rodreb
Of course I am aware of the benefits of an SSD but, I don't have one so, it's really kind of a moot point. My point is, this system, as is, should be capable of stable and responsive performance. I am just trying to track down and fix the issue at hand. The fact that it runs Studio One with great speed and responsiveness tells me there is no reason why I should not be able to get Cakewalk running equally as well. That said, at some point, if I can't get it figured out, my patience will run out and I will be forced to leave Cakewalk behind and try to learn to love Studio One. I really don't want to have to do that, though. I love Cakewalk and have logged so many years with it that I am totally comfortable with it. 

With all due respect, I don't believe you are aware of the real benefits because you wouldn't have the setup you do. I'm not familiar with Studio One's way of doing things, but believe me, cueing up playback of enough tracks streaming off an HDD will hinder performance on any DAW, no matter how fast the rest of the system.
 
Anyways, I never have any problems with responsiveness so if you want to ignore the advice and just dump Sonar for something that can be solved godspeed my friend!
 
R

I'm not saying your advice is wrong. At roughly $200 for a 1 Tb SSD, I simply cannot afford it right now and have to try to work with what I have.
 

I used to stream 20+ audio tracks off an EIDE HDD drive from CW ProAudio 9 through to Sonar 3.
 
From Sonar 5 up to Sonar X3 I was streaming 32 tracks on a SATA HDD without issue. I never had cause to try more, but I'm sure it would handle it.
 
Nowadays I use an SSD, which is obviously better, but a good SATA HDD is more than adequate.

rodreb
I loaded a Cakewalk demo project and it plays perfectly, no hesitation whatsoever. It is 44.1k / 24 bit. I run 48k / 24 bit. Could this possibly be the cause of my issues?

Yes. Yes. Yes-yes. This test you ran. It was a very smart thing to do.
 
I think we have a winner here. There may be some mismatch problem with the bitrate settings with your interface and your project and Cakewalk. Load up the problem project and go into Preferences and check the driver settings and the audio data settings, and also, check the control panel for your Pro 40 and see if it's set to default to 48K. Also go to your Windows audio settings and make sure that it's set to 48K.
 
If you are working in 48K, everything should be set to 48K. Otherwise it'll continually be switching back and forth. I've seen this happen.
 
Also, check the source audio files in your project and see what bitrate they are, if they are all 48K or if maybe one or more is 44K or something else.
 
That time last year when these problems started, was that when you started working in 48K? Or maybe a setting got changed in your interface's driver?