Cheers!!

For home studio use with internal sound playback only, ASIO4All works fine.  I use it on my laptop without any issues.
 
But considering the effort you have put into your DAW, isn't it worth it to put another $80-100 into an inexpensive audio interface with solid audio drivers?  You would notice improved audio quality at the very least, plus most pro audio programs should perform optimally as well.  And you would be able to plug in and record an audio source if desired.  That is something that probably won't work very well with the onboard audio.

Thanks - that could be a future step though it's unlikely I'll need audio in as I work with midi exclusively at the moment. To be honest I've had very little time in the last few years until recently to compose music due to moving house and other music related activities but hopefully I'll get into it again and be able justify better equipment and VSTi's :-)

Chuck My loopback test I did last spring, Sorry don't have a screenshot,  But asio4all was bang on with timing sync same as any ASIO drive. WASAPI was late. Not that is matters with midi. You can use either one I'm sure. But asio4all has seen upgrades just like any software and I find it's currant version a whole lot better than what we used to know. Look back on this forum and I'd the one telling people to get rid of that POS. 
Also the issue with conflicting with real ASIO drivers was no longer true in my case. I tried both my Tascam and my Focusrite interfaces and Sonar grabbed them both. Just make sure you have the interface connected before you boot you laptop. This might not be true with all interface drivers but Tascam and Focusrite are pretty common. You can see that WASAPI is late in this screen shot. I was using a little Behringer interface that uses USB Codex. Even that beat out the WASAPI. 

 

Time for an update - thanks for the help up to now!
 
I tried WASAPI and couldn't get any sound out at all so went back to ASIO4All - maybe I had the wrong settings in the audio setting dialogue but tried a few and gave up
 
I've found a workround based on Johnny V's diagram above. Rather than trying to play my controller keyboard directly in the VSTi track I have set up a midi track which is output to the Air Xpand track. That works as does another midi track output to Independence Free with which I had the same problem. I can happily live with this arrangement but the question remains - why don't these two synths receive midi from the keyboard on their own tracks as do all my other synths? Still puzzling me that one -especially as for a while Air Xpand did work ok!
 
So the other question that remains is why some projects say that certain synths eg Tone 2 Firebird are not installed correctly whilst others have no problem loading them. Now that is bizarre!
 
Thanks again all
 
 

The option to use an "instrument track" is a personal choice. Most of us still like to have the  midi on it's own track. For me a huge reason is I often like to try different VST's. 
I don't want to be dragging midi data between instrument tracks. So it makes more sense to me to just insert a different VST and point the midi track at it to see what it sounds like.
 
If I like the sound better I then delete the original VST instrument track. ( Note for others: in SPLAT you can do this in the Synth Rack, HS doesn't have one) 
If I don't like the new sound I simply point the midi track back at the original VST and delete the new VST track. 
 
A classic example is if you use a downloaded midi file. Here's a cool trick for this.
In preferences/MIDI/ devices un-select all outputs 
Now when you OPEN a midi file the TTS_1 GM VST will load automatically. 
You will have up to 16 midi tracks and one TTS-1 instrument track. 
The song will play using the typical boring GM sounds. 
Now you can upgrade the sounds buy inserting better VST instruments like from the Studio Collection and simply point each midi tracks output to the new and better instruments. The sound of the midi file will become hugely improved. Yu may have to change the patch assignments but you can leave the channels alone. For the SI Bass you'll have to transpose +12. 

Thanks that sounds useful! I agree that setting up the midi track to provide the input to the VSTi is probably a better way to do things :-)
 

Interestingly TTS is one of the synths that won't open - seems to be a registry issue in this case. Is it possible to reinstall this or is it bundled within the whole HS installer
 

JoeGBradford
I tried WASAPI and couldn't get any sound out at all so went back to ASIO4All - maybe I had the wrong settings in the audio setting dialogue but tried a few and gave up
 

You need to fully and entirely uninstall ASIO4ALL and reboot before you try other drivers, it's likely to conflict.

Not a fan at all of ASIO4ALL !

Ah I see! Thanks - no wonder it didn't work!