I noticed this qoute on the system requirement page. Is this correct?
    
" SONAR X1 Essential is a 32-bit application only but can run on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. "

Mike Trujillo [Cakewalk
]

I would say that using one instance of Session Drummer 3 should be ok for you. I would advise in your situation though freezing the Session Drummer 3 track after you've gotten your sequences down as this will free up your resources for the rest of the tracks.
I was actually running 8.5 on a dual core2 with 4GB of ram and it did ok for the most part, it's just when you start having alot of  midi tracks and fx running you'll experience higher latency and then lockups. Audio tracks in themselves are not really resource "hogs" so as long as you keep the instruments (midi tracks) to a minimum or freeze said tracks after you are done writing them and if you're using fx and you find the system lagging freeze these also then you should be able to work. I do want to stress that even though these machines will run, it would be in your best interest to look into a newer machine with more than a dual core. I would also bump up the ram in the dual core you are going to use as this will help out alot!
I hope this helps and have a great holiday!

Please excuse any belligerent tone, but many of us were under the impression that the new system requirements were due to the use of the ProChannel effects.  However, from what you are advising Jim, the PC doesn't even come into play, rather it's the number of FXs and VIs.  This is totally disappointing!  SONAR has become an inefficient resource hog.  Just considering Jim's and my situation, I am at a loss.  Just recently buying a rig that has been instantly rendered under powered for X1 puts many potential user at an impasse.  All the while CW has been telling us how they have been working to make SONAR's audio "engine" run leaner and more efficient with each new version, including X1.  I guess all that work has just gone down the drain.

Now what can I do?  I guess I can only put off my annual upgrade for quite some time until I can invest in a new, more "powerful" system.  Either that or consider other programs at the loss of my time spent using SONAR and the investments I have made over the years toward improving my DAW.  And with the additional time any money to get back to where I was with SONAR (that being knowledge and the cost of purchasing a new program at the full price as opposed to an upgrade rate).  I can't help feel jilted by Cakewalk.

What a flat liner.

Kind regards,


Living Room Rocker

living in a van down by the river

Living Room Rocker

Mike Trujillo [Cakewalk
]

I would say that using one instance of Session Drummer 3 should be ok for you. I would advise in your situation though freezing the Session Drummer 3 track after you've gotten your sequences down as this will free up your resources for the rest of the tracks.
I was actually running 8.5 on a dual core2 with 4GB of ram and it did ok for the most part, it's just when you start having alot of  midi tracks and fx running you'll experience higher latency and then lockups. Audio tracks in themselves are not really resource "hogs" so as long as you keep the instruments (midi tracks) to a minimum or freeze said tracks after you are done writing them and if you're using fx and you find the system lagging freeze these also then you should be able to work. I do want to stress that even though these machines will run, it would be in your best interest to look into a newer machine with more than a dual core. I would also bump up the ram in the dual core you are going to use as this will help out alot!
I hope this helps and have a great holiday!

Please excuse any belligerent tone, but many of us were under the impression that the new system requirements were due to the use of the ProChannel effects.  However, from what you are advising Jim, the PC doesn't even come into play, rather it's the number of FXs and VIs.  This is totally disappointing!  SONAR has become an inefficient resource hog.  Just considering Jim's and my situation, I am at a loss.  Just recently buying a rig that has been instantly rendered under powered for X1 puts many potential user at an impasse.  All the while CW has been telling us how they have been working to make SONAR's audio "engine" run leaner and more efficient with each new version, including X1.  I guess all that work has just gone down the drain.

Now what can I do?  I guess I can only put off my annual upgrade for quite some time until I can invest in a new, more "powerful" system.  Either that or consider other programs at the loss of my time spent using SONAR and the investments I have made over the years toward improving my DAW.  And with the additional time any money to get back to where I was with SONAR (that being knowledge and the cost of purchasing a new program at the full price as opposed to an upgrade rate).  I can't help feel jilted by Cakewalk.

What a flat liner.

Kind regards,


Living Room Rocker

living in a van down by the river

Why are you so much more eager to embrace this slightly pessimistic view from Mike, rather than this optimistic one from Robin Kelly, which seems the more likely scenario based on past experience?
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2120483
 
I have not found any new version of SONAR to be significantly more "resource-hogging" than any other, even across several generations. I get exactly the same load vs. latency relationship with S8.5 on a given machine as I did with S7 or S6.
 
As I see it, the resource requirements have increased over time to support all the new resource-hogging synths and FX that people are using in ever greater numbers. But as far as I can tell, the efficiency of the core program has not changed significantly, one way or the other.

Living Room Rocker

Please excuse any belligerent tone, but many of us were under the impression that the new system requirements were due to the use of the ProChannel effects.  However, from what you are advising Jim, the PC doesn't even come into play, rather it's the number of FXs and VIs.  This is totally disappointing!  SONAR has become an inefficient resource hog.  Just considering Jim's and my situation, I am at a loss.  Just recently buying a rig that has been instantly rendered under powered for X1 puts many potential user at an impasse.  All the while CW has been telling us how they have been working to make SONAR's audio "engine" run leaner and more efficient with each new version, including X1.  I guess all that work has just gone down the drain.

Now what can I do?  I guess I can only put off my annual upgrade for quite some time until I can invest in a new, more "powerful" system.  Either that or consider other programs at the loss of my time spent using SONAR and the investments I have made over the years toward improving my DAW.  And with the additional time any money to get back to where I was with SONAR (that being knowledge and the cost of purchasing a new program at the full price as opposed to an upgrade rate).  I can't help feel jilted by Cakewalk.

What a flat liner.

Kind regards,


Living Room Rocker

living in a van down by the river

Ok, this is what I was worried about. Do not take my response as definitive, I am merely saying that yes his systems will run X1. What I don't want to do is say "yes, with a dual core running 2GB of ram you'll run just fine" then when the user tries to load twenty VI's and a ton of fx plugs and has problems "he said it would work, they are liars". You have to understand that this is all relative to what you are doing, more plugs and VI's require more system resources. That's just how things work in any DAW. I don't think there have been any "smoke and mirrors" here. And yes, as we move along in versions we have become more efficient on the system resources. I'm only trying to give a truthful, practical response to the question of "will my machine work?". As a user you know that VI's and fx like the linear phase mastering and convolution reverbs take more resources than basic plugs. Therefore anyone can benefit from more power in their machine. Does this mean that you have to throw away your current machine and buy a super computer? No, it simply means that while yes the dual core will run you will obviously be able to stack on more VI's and processor hungry fx with more cores and ram.

Mike Trujillo [Cakewalk
]

Living Room Rocker

Please excuse any belligerent tone, but many of us were under the impression that the new system requirements were due to the use of the ProChannel effects.  However, from what you are advising Jim, the PC doesn't even come into play, rather it's the number of FXs and VIs.  This is totally disappointing!  SONAR has become an inefficient resource hog.  Just considering Jim's and my situation, I am at a loss.  Just recently buying a rig that has been instantly rendered under powered for X1 puts many potential user at an impasse.  All the while CW has been telling us how they have been working to make SONAR's audio "engine" run leaner and more efficient with each new version, including X1.  I guess all that work has just gone down the drain.

Now what can I do?  I guess I can only put off my annual upgrade for quite some time until I can invest in a new, more "powerful" system.  Either that or consider other programs at the loss of my time spent using SONAR and the investments I have made over the years toward improving my DAW.  And with the additional time any money to get back to where I was with SONAR (that being knowledge and the cost of purchasing a new program at the full price as opposed to an upgrade rate).  I can't help feel jilted by Cakewalk.

What a flat liner.

Kind regards,


Living Room Rocker

living in a van down by the river

Ok, this is what I was worried about. Do not take my response as definitive, I am merely saying that yes his systems will run X1. What I don't want to do is say "yes, with a dual core running 2GB of ram you'll run just fine" then when the user tries to load twenty VI's and a ton of fx plugs and has problems "he said it would work, they are liars". You have to understand that this is all relative to what you are doing, more plugs and VI's require more system resources. That's just how things work in any DAW. I don't think there have been any "smoke and mirrors" here. And yes, as we move along in versions we have become more efficient on the system resources. I'm only trying to give a truthful, practical response to the question of "will my machine work?". As a user you know that VI's and fx like the linear phase mastering and convolution reverbs take more resources than basic plugs. Therefore anyone can benefit from more power in their machine. Does this mean that you have to throw away your current machine and buy a super computer? No, it simply means that while yes the dual core will run you will obviously be able to stack on more VI's and processor hungry fx with more cores and ram.

Mike, I think I understand what you are saying, but the issue is still a little confusing. The answer you gave above is equally applicable to 8.5.3 and so on, so doesn't really shed any light on X1. The problem is you have upped the system requirements for X1, but we still don't know whether this was done because X1 actually uses more resources than 8.5.3, and if so, is the extra resource usage in proportion to the difference between the old 8.5.3 system requirements and the new X1 ones?
 
Perhaps it would be simpler just to answer the following question:
 
Will X1 run at pretty much the same speed as 8.5.3 does on the same PC under the same load?

Mike, I think I understand what you are saying, but the issue is still a little confusing. The answer you gave above is equally applicable to 8.5.3 and so on, so doesn't really shed any light on X1. The problem is you have upped the system requirements for X1, but we still don't know whether this was done because X1 actually uses more resources than 8.5.3, and if so, is the extra resource usage in proportion to the difference between the old 8.5.3 system requirements and the new X1 ones?
 
Perhaps it would be simpler just to answer the following question:
 
Will X1 run at pretty much the same speed as 8.5.3 does on the same PC under the same load?

In a simple nutshell, yes.

Mike Trujillo [Cakewalk
]

Mike, I think I understand what you are saying, but the issue is still a little confusing. The answer you gave above is equally applicable to 8.5.3 and so on, so doesn't really shed any light on X1. The problem is you have upped the system requirements for X1, but we still don't know whether this was done because X1 actually uses more resources than 8.5.3, and if so, is the extra resource usage in proportion to the difference between the old 8.5.3 system requirements and the new X1 ones?

Perhaps it would be simpler just to answer the following question:

Will X1 run at pretty much the same speed as 8.5.3 does on the same PC under the same load?

In a simple nutshell, yes.

That's the second time I've heard that now. I've already taken the 8.5 upgrade to get the free X1 so I'm hoping it's true. If not I'll just have to upgrade my PC.

As I sit here with my Core 2 Duo reading these questions, even Mike's first answer was very helpful, and his clarifications enhanced that.  I am a composer using very few tracks and even fewer effects as I make demos, and I am more sure now that X1 will work for me.  Thank you for your comments, Mike.

riojazz


As I sit here with my Core 2 Duo reading these questions, even Mike's first answer was very helpful, and his clarifications enhanced that.  I am a composer using very few tracks and even fewer effects as I make demos, and I am more sure now that X1 will work for me.  Thank you for your comments, Mike.

I'm grateful to Mike as well. He's cleared up any doubts I had, but I felt it needed further clarification for those of us who use LOTS of VST plugins simultaneously. Now we know that we can continue to use lots of plugins, at least to (more or less) the same extent as we could before.

Actually, this raises the question why have the system requirements changed at all then?

My guess is to lower the impact on Cake Support. Now they can respond to a lot more queries with the stock answer 'Sorry, your PC does not meet the minimum system requirements'!