• SONAR
  • Help with ASIO driver?
2012/12/29 17:47:39
JasonWardStudios
Greetings,

I'm using Sonar X2 on a Windows 7 machine. I figured with the new machine I should upgrade from Sonar Studio 5 to X2. I've been a little frustrated with it though, because the ASIO doesn't seem to work properly. I was using ASIO4ALL, but it seems this disagrees with Windows 7 in general as it had adverse performance affects on Sonar X2 and FL Studio 10. So I switched to the native Creative ASIO driver for my Sound Blaster xFi card. It works beautifully in FL Studio, no problems at all. I'm running a 50ms buffer and it works with flying colors. When I try to use it in Sonar X2 I get MIDI short, but disruptive, delay between my input keyboard and the final output in X2 (A few milliseconds, enough to trip over notes when playing above 100 BPM). I've tried reducing the buffer to 1ms, but there is still a delay, and of course with such a limited buffer there is plenty of popping when I try to use a virtual synth.

Here's my hardware:
OS: Windows 7 SP1
MIDI Interface: MIDISport 8x8/s USB
Soundcard: Sound Blaster xFi
MOBO and CPU: Intel Extreme Series with Intel 3GHz Core 2 Duo.
RAM: 4MB DDR 1600

Any insight as to why ASIO works fine in FL Studio 10 but not in Sonar X2 would be greatly appreciated. Is this even an ASIO problem? I get the delay even when I use external MIDI Synths.
Thank you.
2012/12/29 21:56:21
gswitz
try clicking the FX button to disable FXs. Validate your render file bit depth (set it to 24 if it is at 32). check your sample buffer in asio. What is the reported latency?
2012/12/29 22:48:00
Danny Danzi
JasonWardStudios


Greetings,

I'm using Sonar X2 on a Windows 7 machine. I figured with the new machine I should upgrade from Sonar Studio 5 to X2. I've been a little frustrated with it though, because the ASIO doesn't seem to work properly. I was using ASIO4ALL, but it seems this disagrees with Windows 7 in general as it had adverse performance affects on Sonar X2 and FL Studio 10. So I switched to the native Creative ASIO driver for my Sound Blaster xFi card. It works beautifully in FL Studio, no problems at all. I'm running a 50ms buffer and it works with flying colors. When I try to use it in Sonar X2 I get MIDI short, but disruptive, delay between my input keyboard and the final output in X2 (A few milliseconds, enough to trip over notes when playing above 100 BPM). I've tried reducing the buffer to 1ms, but there is still a delay, and of course with such a limited buffer there is plenty of popping when I try to use a virtual synth.

Here's my hardware:
OS: Windows 7 SP1
MIDI Interface: MIDISport 8x8/s USB
Soundcard: Sound Blaster xFi
MOBO and CPU: Intel Extreme Series with Intel 3GHz Core 2 Duo.
RAM: 4MB DDR 1600

Any insight as to why ASIO works fine in FL Studio 10 but not in Sonar X2 would be greatly appreciated. Is this even an ASIO problem? I get the delay even when I use external MIDI Synths.
Thank you.

Jason, 50ms is huge man. I use ASIO4ALL on all my service boxes with Sonar running Win 7 x64. Stock Dell Inspiron's, 4 gig RAM i3 and i5 processors with Realtek stock soundcards. Never an issue on my end and 1.5ms latency at 64 buffers. If I set my buffers to equal 50ms, I can't play a single thing on my keyboard. There have been issues with Creative products and Sonar in the past. I'd try to contact Creative support and see what they tell you. Or quite possibly attempt to try the ASIO4ALL driver again and see how you fair.
 
Here's what mine look like on all my little Dell service boxes as well as a screen shot of Sonar in action with a 14 track project using loads of Sonar plugs and 3rd party plugs. CPU is a bit spikey, but no dropouts, glitches, artifacts or latency...and my card here is complete garbage compared to yours. Also, 0 midi lag or latency when recording softsynths in real time.
 
Settings and ASIO: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/Sonar%26Asio4allSettings.JPG
 
Sonar in action with the above settings used: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/14TrackSonar64BuffersLive.JPG
 
Hope some of this helps.
 
-Danny
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