Do you have ASIO4ALL installed? A friend of mine ran into a situation very much like what you describe. He was about to get a new interface but I suggested uninstalling (not just disabling or turning off) ASIO4ALL. Not only did that solve the stuttering, he was able to get lower latencies than ever.
 

Anderton
Do you have ASIO4ALL installed? A friend of mine ran into a situation very much like what you describe. He was about to get a new interface but I suggested uninstalling (not just disabling or turning off) ASIO4ALL. Not only did that solve the stuttering, he was able to get lower latencies than ever.

I do, in fact, use ASIO4ALL. The problem is, I can't use ASIO without it (My mic does have its own ASIO driver, but the interface I have does not include native support, and I can't very well bypass it.). The only other option I can think of would be MME-32; am I mistaken in thinking that WASAPI and WMD driver modes don't allow higher sampling and bit rates?

grizwalter
 
 
I do, in fact, use ASIO4ALL. The problem is, I can't use ASIO without it (My mic does have its own ASIO driver, but the interface I have does not include native support, and I can't very well bypass it.). The only other option I can think of would be MME-32; am I mistaken in thinking that WASAPI and WMD driver modes don't allow higher sampling and bit rates?

All wrong...;)
MME is the oldest and less effective driver type. WASAPI and WDM are way better than MME. In theory, WDM are low level windows drivers and ASIO drivers uses them.
Since your interface is stereo and since you do not have ASIO drivers, just stick to WDM or WASAPI (test which one works better).
The sample rate and bitrate support are interface dependant. Most of time, drivers should support what the interface supports.

I have 12GBs of RAM because I was told I needed more RAM to run a lot of virtual instruments; however, I have never seen my RAM usage hit even 6.  (By the way, "a lot of virtual instruments" means 6 to 12 instances of soft synths, like RealGuitar, Ivory II, two or three Kontakt instruments, EZDrummer, Vienna, etc..)

konradh
I have 12GBs of RAM because I was told I needed more RAM to run a lot of virtual instruments; however, I have never seen my RAM usage hit even 6.  (By the way, "a lot of virtual instruments" means 6 to 12 instances of soft synths, like RealGuitar, Ivory II, two or three Kontakt instruments, EZDrummer, Vienna, etc..)

It's instruments that load samples into RAM and stream from there that need lots of RAM. If you're streaming the samples from disk, then the only RAM that gets used is to store the attacks. This lets notes play immediately when you hit a key, while the hard drive seeks the samples.
 
I believe Kontakt lets you disable DFD so you can stream from RAM instead. This will make life easier for your hard drive and probably allow for more audio tracks. Also note that some hosts do not stream from disk (Reason used to be that way, I think it still is) and in that case, having lots of RAM really helps.

Get a soundcard for cryin out loud.  I've ran a system similar to yours and your problem is relying on onboard sound. No ASIO4ALL driver is going to make an improvement.  Get something like a Focusrite Scarlett.

kitekrazy
Get a soundcard for cryin out loud.  I've ran a system similar to yours and your problem is relying on onboard sound. No ASIO4ALL driver is going to make an improvement.  Get something like a Focusrite Scarlett.

I could probably use a better soundcard, but that has nothing to do with the bulk of my problem I'm certain.

Hey, Craig.  Good comments, thanks.  I am contemplating getting an SSD for Vienna (SE, SE+, Dimension Strings) and Hollywood Strings.  Right now performance sucks on Hollywood and Dimension legatos.  My system is pretty powerful so I think there is just a limit to how well a spinning drive can support these instruments.  If I could go to RAM-only mode for Dimension, that would be awesome since I only enable the patches I need in a track, but no one has suggested that is possible.  I think about $500 will get an SSD big enough for those two libraries.

guigz2000

grizwalter 
I do, in fact, use ASIO4ALL. The problem is, I can't use ASIO without it (My mic does have its own ASIO driver, but the interface I have does not include native support, and I can't very well bypass it.). The only other option I can think of would be MME-32; am I mistaken in thinking that WASAPI and WMD driver modes don't allow higher sampling and bit rates?

All wrong...;)
MME is the oldest and less effective driver type. WASAPI and WDM are way better than MME. In theory, WDM are low level windows drivers and ASIO drivers uses them.
Since your interface is stereo and since you do not have ASIO drivers, just stick to WDM or WASAPI (test which one works better).
The sample rate and bitrate support are interface dependant. Most of time, drivers should support what the interface supports.

Well, now I'm even more confused, since every time I attempt to use those driver modes (WASAPI or WDM) I am told the driver cannot support the sampling rate or this or that and the other thing. I know in the case of at least one of those, it automatically snaps my recording bits and sampling to 16 and 44.1. Since I can record at any bitrate and sample rate using MME-32 and ASIO, clearly my interface doesn't have a problem with higher rates, so that isn't the cause. I'll be double checking on this. I'll come back and post a link to some screenshots of what I see if I can't figure out how to get them to work at higher sampling rates.
 

grizwalter
 
Well, now I'm even more confused, since every time I attempt to use those driver modes (WASAPI or WDM) I am told the driver cannot support the sampling rate or this or that and the other thing. I know in the case of at least one of those, it automatically snaps my recording bits and sampling to 16 and 44.1. Since I can record at any bitrate and sample rate using MME-32 and ASIO, clearly my interface doesn't have a problem with higher rates, so that isn't the cause. I'll be double checking on this. I'll come back and post a link to some screenshots of what I see if I can't figure out how to get them to work at higher sampling rates.
 

When switching to WDM, there will be a hardware analysis which will tell you what sample rate/bit depth is available.
 
Check sonar help
http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation/default.aspx?Doc=SONAR%20X2&Lang=EN&Req=Beginners.18.html