I reckon most development is now geared towards win 8.1 - I'm on win 7 64 bit ...
 
I haven't had many issues with X2a but still get some instabilities with X3c. Now I found a new graphic card driver, yet the old one worked fine with X2a ... will updating the graphic card driver (ATI HD 5450) be beneficial or just add another variable to the vast number of unknowns that may cause these occasional crashes?
 
To update or not to update that's the question ...

FreeFly..its time to look at your board support page....   http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_X79/#support
 
bios chipset drivers and usb drivers , let me know what you running there !

how important is it to use sonar ?
 
it can create issues such as glitches and white screens, hang ups and the list goes on.
I always update all my devices, drivers, windows updates, all of them.

Can't say for sure what the deal is, but there's been a lotta traffic on the board about video and mouse issues affecting Sonar performance with Windows 8+. I've not seen any such issue being claimed about Win 7, so it may very well be a drivers issue. I've read somewhere that MS is working on the mouse issue (reduced position update frequency), which has the gamer crowd howling...
 
It'd be a good idea to keep on top of drivers with Win 8+ until the racket dies down....

Wish I could say W7 / x3 / NVidia drivers were ok.
 
I wonder what the recommended GPU card is nowadays...I'm ready to toss mine.

As you've updated to 8.1 you should be looking at the latest driver for your operating system, and keep updating... Unless you run into serious issues. Really you should be looking at forums specifically to do with your graphics card though to answer this question in more depth rather than DAW specific.

I am always updating drivers and BIOSs myself and my system is always fast and stable. And if one day I update and I don't like the result, I can roll back. That is what backups are for.
 
ps

I'm on the latest nvidea drivers for my card and they are fine. I know people have different experiences.
 
 
 

I haven't had any graphics related issues with my Sonar X3c, and I stopped updating my NVidia drivers a while back because when I read the update notes, it always seemed
to be some minor update which will repair how specific video games will run better. If the upgrade notes ever show some significant OS related improvement, then I may consider applying them.

nVidea just released some great WHQL drivers which are a step up IMHO (release notes say nothing, why would you expect a developer to waste their time developing decent release notes ;) ). As long as you do a custom install and JUST install the driver all should work well (or roll back).
 
nVidia also includes a nice automatic update facility nowadays with the driver at the slight expense of performance.

You can always set a restore point, or if you forget, roll back the driver in Device Manager.

Anderton
You can always set a restore point, or if you forget, roll back the driver in Device Manager.

Great info. I had thought that is only available for programs.
 
How about changes to BIOS? That still scares - anyway to roll back or be safe?
 
I'm still not fully convinced I shoud be getting into all of this ... seems a bit like taking the entire car apart just because it occasionally stalls at a junction ... hmmm?