It really is so much more stable.
 
I seem to be gearing up the confidence in throwing everything I can at it, so having loop points playing, punching in and out, comping on the fly, tweaking FX across multiple bus channels and individual channels, dropping in pro channel modules, deleting them... saving while the project is playing plus heaps of other stuff ...(this is all while I am connected to the internet and often go off for a random smoke in the kitchen whilst listening to my tune as I write)...
 
Todays project has about 12 drum tracks running from Kontakt in 5 busses (cyms, OH's snares, kiks, toms) into one master drum Bus, 4 guitar tracks running into a master guitar bus, 1 bass track, a few sample tracks into 1 master sample bus...A few soft Synths like Reaktor from my Komplete.....then all ultimately routed into the master bus and into my master out.... I have compressors, expanders, quad curve Eqs, limiters, gates, Guitar Rigs, Automation, Comping, Melodyne, filters.......
 
NOT ONE CRASH!!!!!
 
NOT BLOODY ONE!!!!
 
The *only thing* I have noticed is that with my MOTU Audio Express card Sonar and Other programs HATE sharing the sample rate (despite share with other programs) so, if I dash off to play music outside of Sonar it will speed up in VLC or Media player or You Tube or whatever....So, obviously a sharing drivers issue. (I always blame Windows for this anyway)
 
Massive Kudos to the Bakers for X3, this is one fine release.

Totally agree markyzno! One of the things I like to do with Sonar is create a test project to where I work on it a bit all day long while leaving the program open all day. I'll minimize it when I need to do something else, but it's still there in the background. As I work on this project, I don't save anything and I just see how long I can go before something fails. I've had something up for 2 days now that has 16 tracks of audio and midi with various plugs, automation, punch-ins, comping, loops and just about anything else I could throw in that I knew how to use. So far it's been perfect and I'm really impressed with X3.
 
I've not been able to have this much trust in Sonar since 8.5. That's not meant to be a bash on previous versions, but because I had experienced some weirdness and crashes when I least expected them, my left hand became fixed in a ctrl+s state. It's good practice to save often as wel all know, but if I got too into something using 8.5, it was rare that it would bite me with a crash.
 
The other versions of Sonar were stable for me too....but I happened to notice that they would come and bite me with a crash at the worst possible times. Or, I felt I was walking on egg-shells while using them so I'd never do anything on the fly with audio playing etc. You know when you act extra careful to make sure you don't crash or over-work something? So far none of that here....this one is a definite keeper so far for how *I* use it. Glad it's been the same for you....good luck!
 
-Danny 

*sigh*
 
I wish they could have made X2 work as well as X3 seems to be from these reports. I will have to live with eggshells underfoot for now.

...outstanding reviews. I'm having the same good fortune with stability.

What latency are you using? When I used a fair number of plugin instruments in X2 I usually had to bump it up to 256 in ASIO. The same project would play flawlessly at 128 in X1. Since I dumped my mixer in favor of the new Studio Captures I'm hoping with X3 that low latency has returned.

I have a roundtrip of 5.7 msec.
 
Thats on a 256 I/O buffer....Thats basically nearly zero really, I notice no latency at all.
 
My project tonight has incresed in size by around a 3rd as I have recorded Vocals, a few more comps, made some new routes in the Console, added some more FX....
 
Also, for the hell of it (AND I NEVER DO THIS USUALLY) Put in Ozone on the Master Bus....

Still playing flawlessly....I Always normally have to always bounce down a project and re-open another for a mastering session...Although I am starting to spike somewhat If I have google on at the same time now.