I have used Sonar since 7.0 with two Dell 19" monitors (1440x900) with several low-end Nvidia cards.
Recently I added a Dell 24" (1920x1080) and switched to an ATI HD6450 Sapphire card to provide an output for the new 3rd monitor. Due to desk space limitations, I made a custom mount and placed the 1920x1080 monitor on top of the smaller side-by-side Dells. This setup works great. I put the console view in the larger top monitor, the track view in the lower left monitor and effects in the lower right monitor. I will use this for a year or so while waiting for 4K 60Hz to become affordable.
 
I am trying to improve my mastering skills and was previewing various Sonar stock compressors/limiters using the same mix. I normally set master track waveform preview on and use this to monitor the master track waveform envelope watching for clipping, pumping etc.
 
I noticed that the waveform preview paint no longer is aligned with the audio scale db marks in the left margin of the master track.
The left zero (no signal) waveform is painted above the 0 db label about twice the height of the label. The right channel is painted above the 0 db label about 3/4 the height of the label. The audio scale can be zoomed in place but this makes no difference in the alignment of the audio scale labels and the painted waveform.
 
So far I have tried these changes...
-Moving track view to other monitors.
-Starting Sonar from other monitors.
-Setting all 3 monitors to the same resolution (1440x900).
-Changing windows text size.
-Turning ATI GPU scaling on/off.
-Changing order of the monitors (1-2-3 , 2-1-3, etc).
-disabling the 1920x1080 monitor (essentially the old Nvidia card setup but now with ATI card).
-updating to latest ATI video drivers.
 
This is certainly no show-stopper but for me a minor workflow nuisance. So far I have seen no other graphics text misalignments in Sonar. It seems to me that this is an ATI issue rather than a 3 monitor issue. I really don't want to go back to Nvidia since their 3  monitor cards seem to be rather pricey compared to ATI. I only paid ~$40 for HD6450 and it has plenty of juice for Sonar and Windows apps even with 3 monitors. It seems ATI performance is slightly better as well and also is fanless.
 
Anyone have a similar experience or any suggestions?
 
Michael
 
 
 
 
 

I would not use the waveform preview for any kind of detailed analysis. It's a decimated version of the actual waveform, meaning only 1 out of every 128 samples are displayed. It's a tradeoff between accuracy and efficiency. The preview feature is useful for many things, but not for detailed analysis.
 
If you want to get a good look at your waveform, measure its RMS and peak values, check for overs, etc. then it's best to export the mix and load the file into an external audio editor such as Audacity, Wavosaur, Sound Forge, Audition, Wavepad, Waveshop or Acoustica. (Those are just the ones that come to mind, there are many others, and many are free.)

Bitflipper,
Thanks for the reply. I do not rely on the Preview solely and am aware of its limitations. I rely on Audacity and/or Wavosaur and essentially use Preview for a quick and dirty look. One thing that concerns me somewhat (being an engineer and programmer) is that something like an alignment/scaling bug rarely shows up in only one place. So far I have not seen it elsewhere.
I thought I would install the 32-bit X3d  and see if that had any effect. I have wanted to install 32-bit for a while anyway and this is a good excuse.
 
Michael
 

microapp
The left zero (no signal) waveform is painted above the 0 db label about twice the height of the label. The right channel is painted above the 0 db label about 3/4 the height of the label. The audio scale can be zoomed in place but this makes no difference in the alignment of the audio scale labels and the painted waveform.
 

 
I had a hard time understanding this initially, as "no signal" is not 0dB, it's -Inf. But after experimenting a bit, I now understand that your issue is the waveform's zero-crossing point is not centered on the "dB-" label in the middle of each channel's scale.
 
I can reproduce this in X3 and X2, but not in X1, so it appears to be a bug, albeit minor, and has nothing to do with your display setup. The misalignment of the left channel waveform is fixed at about 3/16" (high) on my monitor. The right-channel misalignment is much smaller - only noticable when the audio is a flatline.
 
I'm pretty sure this will require a fix from the Bakers, so you should report it and then ignore it.
 

Hey thanks, Brundlefly.
Yes, I explained it poorly and should not have called it 0 db. Good to know it is not my setup though. Agreed it is a very minor bug. I will notify the bakers.
 
Michael
 

Michael please do let us know your issue number in cakewalk problem reporter. Thanks!

Alex,
The issue number is CWBRN-23599.
 
Michael

I know what you mean, Michael. The numbers to the left of the track view often seem to have little relationship to the waveform presentation. Consequently, I never reference them except when I want to set two tracks to the same zoom level, and even then close is good enough. I believe it's a scaling/resolution problem. You've got 16 million possible sample values and only a couple thousand vertical pixels to scale them to. That's why the picture jumps as you resize the track or change the zoom level. A bug, perhaps, but possibly a permanent restriction. 

Bitflipper,
I agree with you totally for standard tracks but for the left master track the misalignment seems both constant and severe. The standard tracks jump around a few pixels when zooming. I agree this is probably computational and the result of rounding the floating point numbers of the track audio to the integers of the pixel addresses. 
 
Michael