Too high often means higher latency, i.e. a music keyboard feels unresponsive as there is a delay.
Too low and you risk CPU spikes.
How high or high low it should be is down the the driver efficiency and the hardware, and how much CPU the rest of your software takes (i.e. melodyne).

Using 8.5 I can set the buffers to 128 and have zero issues with any of the SONAR processes. X1 was good too. Don't get me started with X2. X3 was seemingly more CPU hungry. My initial settings were a 512 buffer size.

My performance issue likely have nothing to do with Melodyne since I always bound to clips when done with Melodyne processing.

This appears to be more like drivers to me anyway...
I must be getting muddled, I thought I wrote this somewhere already, I lose track of the thread that are everywhere...
 
If you have lag when pressing buttons such as arm/record (classic hardware/drivers issue) please under preferences -> Project -> Record - Disable "Allow arm changes during playback/record".
 
Also please try disabling "always stream audio through FX" if that doesn't help in preferences.
 
Thanks.

I have decided, for a few days now, to push through using X3D in my current state of performance. I get the occasional pop and crackle during playback and recording and pop during start/stop of the project.

Nothing is stopping me from using X3 at this time although I do get the occasional process flow gotcha and discovered bug.
 
I told Keith that I would like to see SONAR at it's finest and I am willing to help in any way I can to have my faith restored in SONAR as much as I used to have.

The only time I get pops and crackles is when I time stretch audio clips. When that happens the track meter peaks and basically it corrupts the audio clips. Even bringing them back to 100% time doesn't help. This happens even at very high latency settings.

Im not sure these are the latest ... but worth looking at ....
 
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/chipset?os=Windows+8+-+32
 

Small buffers fill faster but don't move as much data. You get drop outs when there is more data than can be moved in time

Large buffers take longer to fill but move more data at any one time. Dropouts occur when the filling of the buffer takes too long.

So there's a minimum where the buffers are just big enough that they can fill in response to how much data is being fed to them.

There is also a maximum where the buffers large size doesn't slow the data down waiting on buffers being filled.

@StarTekh Once again better late than never (polite advice please read the threads first) check #71 + #72 + #73. [grins]

Alex: if your read the 2 posts I did you would remember that im not here much anymore, I dont have time ..as for reading the threads , the longer they get , the more I know I should help out. Keep up the good support . Il drop in to see how you all are doing !

:)