There's a long, old thread about Sonar X3d's bug when moving the mouse cursor over MIDI clips during playback.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/sonar-X3d-now-time-playhead-Lag-when-moving-the-mouse-cursor-on-playback-m2952126-p3.aspx


I made a video documenting my experience of the bug. Feel free to watch.
 
http://youtu.be/R1uVxQzwD4A
 
I can cause the Sonar engine CPU readout to peak and force playback to stop by simply moving the mouse. Notably, when this happens, the CPU is NOT actually showing any abnormal activity in Windows Task Manager . . . only in Sonar. 
 
For me, this bug is tied to using EastWest products. When I remove EastWest products from my project, it no longer happens.


All of my drivers and software are up to date. I've tried every MIDI and audio setting in both Sonar and EastWest/Play that I can think of. 

Can anybody shed more light on this problem? 

Does this only occur on midi tracks?  I have QL Spaces and get 100% CPU peaks when moving the mouse anywhere on the track viewing area.  I have only audio tracks.  I will have to try deleting QL Spaces from the project to see if that is the issue.  My issue seemed related to ASIO buffer size.  Does this only occur on midi tracks?  I have QL Spaces and get 100% CPU peaks when moving the mouse anywhere on the track viewing area.  I have only audio tracks.  I will have to try deleting QL Spaces from the project to see if that is the issue.  My issue (at least the crackles and pops) are somewhat related to ASIO buffer size.  

 

Check:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/sonar-X3d-now-time-playhead-Lag-when-moving-the-mouse-cursor-on-playback-m2952126.aspx
 

martinv
Does this only occur on midi tracks?  I have QL Spaces and get 100% CPU peaks when moving the mouse anywhere on the track viewing area.  I have only audio tracks.  I will have to try deleting QL Spaces from the project to see if that is the issue.  My issue seemed related to ASIO buffer size.  Does this only occur on midi tracks?  I have QL Spaces and get 100% CPU peaks when moving the mouse anywhere on the track viewing area.  I have only audio tracks.  I will have to try deleting QL Spaces from the project to see if that is the issue.  My issue (at least the crackles and pops) are somewhat related to ASIO buffer size.  

 

I DO have a project with JUST QL Spaces where when I move the mouse ANYWHERE in the track view pane, Sonar's CPU usage spikes until playback stops. 
 
However, I have ANOTHER project with Play VST where the problem only happens when I move the mouse over MIDI clips on MIDI tracks. 

The "smart" select tool sometimes seems to make it happen faster, but that's just anecdotal. 

I have YET to reproduce this bug in any project that does not have an EastWest product -- QL Spaces OR PlayVST. 

I just did some testing and should point out the issue in my video is nothing to do with EastWest plugins and everything to do with "Aim Assist", the vertical bar in track view that moves with the mouse.  Actually I think I discovered this in X2, but forgot about it.

#3 then...
This problem/these problems became most noticeable in X3D.

martinv
I just did some testing and should point out the issue in my video is nothing to do with EastWest plugins and everything to do with "Aim Assist", the vertical bar in track view that moves with the mouse.  Actually I think I discovered this in X2, but forgot about it.

Disabling "Aim Assist" on the "Edit" menu does not affect this problem for me. Changing from the "Smart" selection tool to "Draw" reduces it some compared to other selection tools.

Eastwest had me clean-wipe and re-install all of their products. It has made no difference.  

Hey! Bro, you are not alone. I have made the very same observation - ONLY with east west products
 
While the problem was even more unbearable in play 4, downgrading to play 3 removed a LOT of the crackles and stops and I was then even able to fast-bounce tracks, as long as I do not move the mouse. Moving the mouse , whenever the cursor changes, I get lags, crackles and the like. This is independant from buffer size (running smoothly with 64 samples, but even with max sample size , crackles occur).
 
my rig is a da-x Extreme64 audio workstation, 32 GB ram, i7 6-core unit. Working with Sonar x3d.
 

Please install X3E, it should fix it assuming there isn't another latency issue causing it.
And make sure you are on the latest plugin versions. Thanks.

Hey Alex and thanks for the reply. I downloaded x3e. I did not install the newest play software. Funny story: The crackling is caused by having QL spaces activated. No crackling appears when ONLY using play engine in Sonar , no crackling either only using play engine in SONAR via Vienna Ensemble (which I ususally do). No difference having QL Spaces running in ensemble or in sonar, crackles whenever activated, whenever the mouse cursor changes its form.
/UPdate: TEsted with the newest PLAY engine version (4.1.8.) - crackles whenever mouse cursor changes form, this time even the play software. No go for me, reverting to play 3.
I'd like to add that this is an issue during playback only, fast bouncing to disk results in no problems in output. Are you maintaining contact to east west devs or should I contact them about this?