The majority of feedback from users is that SONAR X3d is quite stable. There's no reason not to update to it, if that's a question at all. And of course we are working on even more improvements. I think the spirit of the OP's question was how many issues can be attributed to SONAR X3 and how many have to do with the overall DAW set-up, including hardware, 3rd party software, etc. It's a valid question. Have an optimized system is of course important and addressing issues that users may have with X3 is obviously important to us as well. The title of this thread is a little misleading IMHO. But overall, we are pretty happy with the response and feel like we have the best DAW out there right now. And yes, I am bias but I can say that SONAR X3 is a huge leap forward for us as a company. And of course, making customers happy is really important to us so we appreciate all the feedback. Thanks again for all your input and of course for buying SONAR X3. Looking forward to even more great stuff in 2014. 

Fair enough. Yeah, memory can play tricks on ya.
 
Why, sometimes it seems like only yesterday that we got a 32-bit floating point mix engine (which was a big deal back then)...
 
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/cakewalk.audio/6ODdqUfebxw/discussion
 
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/cakewalk.audio/sJFuj-MJwIk/discussion
 
(the second thread may lend a bit of perspective)

LOL, look Ma, I found the Energizer bunny!!

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]
The majority of feedback from users is that SONAR X3d is quite stable. There's no reason not to update to it, if that's a question at all. And of course we are working on even more improvements. I think the spirit of the OP's question was how many issues can be attributed to SONAR X3 and how many have to do with the overall DAW set-up, including hardware, 3rd party software, etc. It's a valid question. Have an optimized system is of course important and addressing issues that users may have with X3 is obviously important to us as well. The title of this thread is a little misleading IMHO. But overall, we are pretty happy with the response and feel like we have the best DAW out there right now. And yes, I am bias but I can say that SONAR X3 is a huge leap forward for us as a company. And of course, making customers happy is really important to us so we appreciate all the feedback. Thanks again for all your input and of course for buying SONAR X3. Looking forward to even more great stuff in 2014. 

Hi,
So without actually ever referring[surprise surprise] to my question[now I've reinstalled back to X3A]I can only assume you [and Craig A.] are wholeheartedly recommending X3D,even though after installing it in my plug heavy "little" 6 track 5 buss Project that was nowhere near "peaking" the dreaded  "first thread"[when will intel or whoever fix that?] on X3C,instantly became unplayable,i.e. DROPOUT,straight after installing X3D?
 
This Xps L502x is getting a bit tired I suppose,so "IT" could have been any one of a zillion other culprits,that just happenned to berzerk the CPU meter after installing "D"[with the 64 bit engine turned OFF of course!,both in prefffs and in export].
 
I'm going to go for C again,just in case,but what will I be missing out on[if anything?] by going C?
Sincerely
Bob

Really Bad ? Yes.

Grivanov
Really Bad ? Yes.

There you go - the detailed and justified argument from an X1D user on 5 posts :).
 

bob, guitar guy...what you will be missing out on was publicly posted for all in the frackin' world to view, in the Cake post announcing "D"... do your homework... and go back to C if it works for you... the vagaries of pc machines is so crazy I've struggled with things for years and if something works, use it!!! For me, D is working and I'm very happy...Then again, for the money you spent on any of those sweet guitars and amps, you could upgrade to a 4930... doubt you'd have a problem then...
 
I've been immersed in "D" since xmas eve....and to balance Grivanov's exquisitely detailed three word opinion, I'll disagree, beating him... USING ONLY TWO WORDS:  "it's amazing!"  of course, probably wouldn't have run so well on my old i7950; I was always crashing the first core but intel has definitely improved on balanced core loading and I can throw about as much cpu eating diva/LuSH or whatever at it with no overloading...it's kind of ridiculous; has me all giddy and stuff...everyone should just bite the bullet and get/put together a DAW using top of the line components...it really ain't that hard if music is your passion... I see guitars for $1500 everywhere... and I did my upgrade for under 1K!!!
 
I'm glad I haven't spent all my meger funds on beer, wine, starbucks crap, and other bullsheist and instead made it a priority, when my power supple/motherboard died, to buy the parts needed to put together a daw worthy of hungry vsts... I don't have to wine and complain and spend time bein' frustrated... I don't like wining...
 
And, being a relatively casual user until now I haven't ingrained habits to the point where workflow changes are going to piss me off...Oh yea, I got all the videos too...and even paid full price (grrrrrr...) to relearn and it's going pretty good...
 
So, to again answer the OP's kinda stupid question, NO, X3D is NOT that bad... it's AWESOME!!! 
 
Oh, and Grivanov, who says in his sig he's a "very clever person"... you're an idiot!
 
sorry... gotta write some more music... then go visit my ageing mom up north for a week...I have marked this thread for instant notification as it is very good for comedic relief...
 
...all the while remembering how challenged I was with a crappy pc... I don't care what they say the minimum spec is... you'll love maxing out a whole lot more.  AND IT AIN'T THAT EXPENSIVE

CakeAlexS

Grivanov
Really Bad ? Yes.

There you go - the detailed and justified argument from an X1D user on 5 posts :).
 

yup
+1

X3d is Cakewalks best DAW yet.  And I have been using Cakewalk since the 90s.   I have tried cubase and others.
 

Vastman
bob, guitar guy...what you will be missing out on was publicly posted for all in the frackin' world to view, in the Cake post announcing "D"... do your homework... and go back to C if it works for you... the vagaries of pc machines is so crazy I've struggled with things for years and if something works, use it!!! For me, D is working and I'm very happy...Then again, for the money you spent on any of those sweet guitars and amps, you could upgrade to a 4930... doubt you'd have a problem then...

Bob, I am going to cross-thread this but I made a few posts on this thread specifically about how utterly baffled I am with some posts and why. The second post I made after the one above shows a (badly recorded) video of me playing two different songs via ASIO (one in X3, the other in Melodyne Editor (stand-alone)).
 
The "kicker" to me is look at my system specs... i7-2600K (not overclocked), and 8GB RAM! As I research more, I think 2 major hardware pieces (I have) come into play... one is the SSD on my OS/program drive, and the other is the audio interface. I do minimize programs running, but I "violate" guidance of hardcore DAW users all the time in that I run my onboard audio in tandem (dedicated to Win7) and multi-task all the time (Alt-TAB is my best friend). I have not done excessive tweaks to this system, and X3 (all patch levels) run great.
 
The audio interface is the #1 component to streamlining things... getting sounds in and out of a machine as efficiently as possible.  The SSD has been #2 for me in that I let Win7 control its own paging file (virtual memory) and it has done very well performance-wise.
 
The factor I avoid is "plug heavy"... I avoid it like the plague actually. If a plug is that aggressive on CPU/RAM usage, then I feel that it is poorly scripted. 15 years ago I had a friend say something funny which was "programmers get complacent... they assume massive resources are available, and code this way... it is sloppy code, and in no way efficient." That was what first attracted me to Cakewalk... the code is forced to be efficient, or else the concept of a DAW is impossible. By piling inefficient plugs into an efficient engine, the system will be effected! Someone made a funny comment the other day about hardware... "Is like sticking 13" rims on a Porsche 911" The same applies to plug-ins.
 
Take a step back and look at the piece parts you have running/supporting X3... there is nothing catastrophically wrong with X3... it is actually pretty damn slick in my opinion.