Platinum will not behave in 24 bit

Hello, folks. I am having issues with platinum trying to record in 24 bit. firstly my system is as follows:
 
Dell inspiron 7559 with an Intel core i7 6700HQ, 8gb of ram
Alesis multimix 16 USB 2.0
 
I am recording all acoustic instruments, drums, bass, guitars. no midi, samples etc.
 
I've currently got it all set up for recording drums. 8 microphones, 5 close mics and 3 overheads. When in 16 bit/44.1 it works just fine. I've even tested the system adding guitar tracks, bass, vocals - up to 20ish tracks playing back simultaneously and everything is fine. I want to do the same thing but in 24bit/96k. the alesis mixer supports this resolution and cakewalk acknowledges that it supports this resolution when I set it up.
 
Alas, when I hit record it crashes. Not audio dropout, not glitching. Straight up crashing. asking if I want to make a recovery file before it shuts down. I've tinkered with seemingly every setting in the preferences, rebooting the system and mixer after making changes, I've even gone as far as to try different bitrates and it only seems to want to function at 16/44.1 . anything else I try, it crashes. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Your Alesis MultiMix 16 USB FX mixer is also your USB computer audio interface, providing two channels of audio recording and two channels of audio playback with your Mac or PC. This single-cable USB connection provides 16-bit digital audio at either 44.1 (CD-quality) or 48 kHz. The USB playback can be routed to the MultiMix 16 USB FX main outputs, monitor outputs, or both for maximum flexibility.

 
I wouldn't sweat it. Make your recordings at 16/44 and be happy. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, you really won't notice the difference.