Up until now I had been running Sonar 32 bit on an old desktop pc that I designated solely to studio stuff. I just started using Sonar 64 bit on my laptop, which has much better specs (quad core, 8gb ram on Windows 8 compared to dual core, 4 gb ram on Vista 32), but I'm having some performance issues:

 1. Occasional sluggishness. Sometimes there's a slight delay when doing basic things (opening the PRV, changing snap settings, etc.). This only happens in Sonar. All other programs run fine (I can run the latest games no problem) and I have windows configured for optimum performance. These delays never occur on my old crappy comp.

 2. Slight delay before playback. I used an external audio interface in ASIO driver mode on my old setup. I'm using the native sound card on my laptop in MME(32 bit) mode. But playback quality is fine and no latency issues, so not sure what's causing this.

3. This last one is not really a Sonar issue but it's annoying so hopefully someone knows how to fix it. For some reason, whenever I open Kontakt, or refresh the file list in Kontakt, it checks my DVD drive. My Kontakt folders are all on my hard drive and I'm not using the DVD drive for anything music related. I don't know if this is a Kontakt issue or a Windows issue, but it doesn't happen on my old machine.

Laptops, even Macs, are typically slower performers than desktop machines. This is by nature to save battery-power and to keep from blowing up your battery or burn your legs off when using one in your lap. 

It's typical to over-build a laptop and degrade performance to "save" energy, and to put it all in a VERY compact space. Many times, the voltage has to be lower than what your motherboard sees in a desktop. For example, your desktop uses probably a 400-600 Watt power supply to provide suitable power to your desktop machine. Laptops have power supplies that range from 60-200 Watts max. To accomplish this lower power, the laptop can't run as furiously as the desktop.

More, laptop hard-drives are slower than the desktop 3.5" drives in most cases. The I/O throughput is lower, and Sonar depends on this being fast unless you have gobs and gobs of available RAM. 

So, even though your laptop provides a faster processor/RAM etc. you will likely never see the same performance as a desktop of equal specs, or even one that may be slower.

Sorry for the bad news, but even the newest of Macs aren't stellar performers, IMO. They're downright slow when compared to a desktop. Sorry, Mac fans, but this is my experience with them. 

You cannot expect Sonar to run properly under MME. You need an audio interface to optimize Sonar,, trust me I tried with a brand new Lenovo i5 6 GIG RAM,  and until I installed the ASIO drivers and switched to using an interface, I could not really do much in Sonar. About all you can do is use the on board MIDI chip and audio tracks. Forget soft synths. 

You cannot expect Sonar to run properly under MME.

 
+1   The simplest test would be to use MME drivers on the desktop machine's built-in sound card (assuming there is one) to see how it compares.
 

Cactus Music


You cannot expect Sonar to run properly under MME. You need an audio interface to optimize Sonar,, trust me I tried with a brand new Lenovo i5 6 GIG RAM,  and until I installed the ASIO drivers and switched to using an interface, I could not really do much in Sonar. About all you can do is use the on board MIDI chip and audio tracks. Forget soft synths. 

Well, I'm using plenty of soft synths and having no trouble with the audio quality or latency; it just takes a second to start playback after hitting the spacebar occasionally. It's not a huge deal--I'd actually rather deal with the delay than carry around the interface. Is it not possible to use ASIO drivers with the built-in soundcard? I'm not really clear on the difference between the modes... all I know is that ASIO is the preferred.
Edit: I found a driver called ASIO4ALL that essentially provides ASIO optimization for WDM audio devices. Working flawlessly so far.

Well I guess we should just all toss our audio interfaces in the garbage, we've been wrong all along! No need for wasting money anymore on equipment that's not really needed. If MME mode is now working with Sonar this is good news. ( sorry just pullin' yer leg) 

ASIO4 all is a good alliterative for using on board sound. 
But watch out for tracks being out of sync, that was my main issue.