John

Swiller


my recommendations... go win 7. Sonar x2 does not have win 8 drivers. Turn autosave in x2 every 10-20 changes. Turn off ram and processor power saving in the bios menu. do all the usual pc optimizations in windows for pro audio. If that dont work, yer buggered tbh.

"Sonar X2 does not have win 8 drivers"? Funny Sonar X2 is running fine on my Windows 8. BTW X2 doesn't come with drivers. 

I'm not convinced about all the PC optimizations, either.  I do set my PC power setting to max, but that's about it.  A lot of the commonly quoted ones are no longer relevant in Windows7 and 8.
 
To be really controversial - I run Norton, am connected wirelessly, go on the internet, and still use my internal card for computer sounds and Youtube, etc.  I guess I must just be lucky, because X1 and X2 still run perfectly, are stable, no drop outs, even on large projects..
 
Here comes the tirade..

jb101

John

Swiller


my recommendations... go win 7. Sonar x2 does not have win 8 drivers. Turn autosave in x2 every 10-20 changes. Turn off ram and processor power saving in the bios menu. do all the usual pc optimizations in windows for pro audio. If that dont work, yer buggered tbh.

"Sonar X2 does not have win 8 drivers"? Funny Sonar X2 is running fine on my Windows 8. BTW X2 doesn't come with drivers. 

I'm not convinced about all the PC optimizations, either.  I do set my PC power setting to max, but that's about it.  A lot of the commonly quoted ones are no longer relevant in Windows7 and 8.
 
To be really controversial - I run Norton, am connected wirelessly, go on the internet, and still use my internal card for computer sounds and Youtube, etc.  I guess I must just be lucky, because X1 and X2 still run perfectly, are stable, no drop outs, even on large projects..
 
Here comes the tirade..

Not from me JB. I do much the same thing. I haven't run into the problems others seem hit either. I don't think its just luck. I think you know what you are doing. 

A computer is a tool with no purpose. It only gets one when we add a program to it. Otherwise its a blank box. Its up to us to use it wisely. 

John

jb101

John

Swiller


my recommendations... go win 7. Sonar x2 does not have win 8 drivers. Turn autosave in x2 every 10-20 changes. Turn off ram and processor power saving in the bios menu. do all the usual pc optimizations in windows for pro audio. If that dont work, yer buggered tbh.

"Sonar X2 does not have win 8 drivers"? Funny Sonar X2 is running fine on my Windows 8. BTW X2 doesn't come with drivers. 

I'm not convinced about all the PC optimizations, either.  I do set my PC power setting to max, but that's about it.  A lot of the commonly quoted ones are no longer relevant in Windows7 and 8.

To be really controversial - I run Norton, am connected wirelessly, go on the internet, and still use my internal card for computer sounds and Youtube, etc.  I guess I must just be lucky, because X1 and X2 still run perfectly, are stable, no drop outs, even on large projects..

Here comes the tirade..

Not from me JB. I do much the same thing. I haven't run into the problems others seem hit either. I don't think its just luck. I think you know what you are doing. 

A computer is a tool with no purpose. It only gets one when we add a program to it. Otherwise its a blank box. Its up to us to use it wisely. 
 

And just to shake the hornet's nest:
 
I bought my PC "Off the shelf" from a computer store; just got them to add more RAM.
 
When I say I run wirelessly, I mean I'm connected to a router, and have a wireless keyboard and mouse.
 
I don't update the drivers for my "MOBO", video card etc., etc., every five minutes, as some suggest as the first port of call.
 
What I have found is that Sonar is very sensitive to settings.  Find the sweetspot for buffer settings (MIDI and audio, bounce settings etc.) etc.,  and it works fine.
 
That's been my experience, anyway.
 
And read all possible manuals.  Again and again..
 
And follow the posts on this forum.

I appreciate that there are many different experiences but I've just bought a new laptop. Off the shelf HP 8760w i7 with 12MB RAM.

I'm yet to really get my teeth into it but with X2 loaded and using *shock* onboard sound with ASIO4ALL it'll happily playback the Corey Yarkin project at 64 samples without dropouts while I'm dragging the loop markers around. All with the wireless connection active. DPC latency is around the 200usec mark which is a fair whack more than my main DAW but doesn't seem to be making much difference.

I'm yet to connect my FW ZED-R16 but it's looking good so far.

jb101

John

jb101

John

Swiller


my recommendations... go win 7. Sonar x2 does not have win 8 drivers. Turn autosave in x2 every 10-20 changes. Turn off ram and processor power saving in the bios menu. do all the usual pc optimizations in windows for pro audio. If that dont work, yer buggered tbh.

"Sonar X2 does not have win 8 drivers"? Funny Sonar X2 is running fine on my Windows 8. BTW X2 doesn't come with drivers. 

I'm not convinced about all the PC optimizations, either.  I do set my PC power setting to max, but that's about it.  A lot of the commonly quoted ones are no longer relevant in Windows7 and 8.

To be really controversial - I run Norton, am connected wirelessly, go on the internet, and still use my internal card for computer sounds and Youtube, etc.  I guess I must just be lucky, because X1 and X2 still run perfectly, are stable, no drop outs, even on large projects..

Here comes the tirade..

Not from me JB. I do much the same thing. I haven't run into the problems others seem hit either. I don't think its just luck. I think you know what you are doing. 

A computer is a tool with no purpose. It only gets one when we add a program to it. Otherwise its a blank box. Its up to us to use it wisely. 
 

And just to shake the hornet's nest:
 
I bought my PC "Off the shelf" from a computer store; just got them to add more RAM.
 
When I say I run wirelessly, I mean I'm connected to a router, and have a wireless keyboard and mouse.
 
I don't update the drivers for my "MOBO", video card etc., etc., every five minutes, as some suggest as the first port of call.
 
What I have found is that Sonar is very sensitive to settings.  Find the sweetspot for buffer settings (MIDI and audio, bounce settings etc.) etc.,  and it works fine.
 
That's been my experience, anyway.
 
And read all possible manuals.  Again and again..
 
And follow the posts on this forum.

I'm not that crazy about doing every possible optimization either, but one thing that has reduced crashes immensely for me was to start running Sonar in a different user account that has most of my usual startup crap disabled. For instance I had Skype loading, as well as lots of Quickbooks services, Outlook sync tool, and Windows Live Mesh which automatically syncs files to the cloud. I would guess that none of that was doing my Sonar experience any good. I also disable Windows real time protection as well, since that was always one that gave me problems when I was using Pro Tools. All in all this stuff has helped a lot. I was crashing so often before, and oftentimes when just clicking around in the console or in automation lanes. All that's pretty much stopped. 

Sorry to know it. If time comes for me to upgrade from Sonar 8.53 Producer to (perhaps) Sonar X10, I will set a new computer system to give it a try, so, I don't mess my occasional present sessions. P.S. Cakewalk, thanks for Black Friday Specials post, it feed us with an idea of Black Friday Concert Full, here it is, near 3 hours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDHYqWG6JAM

Lotsa good tips here!

I have my auto-save set to every 25 changes, no time limit.
No of saves= 20
I often manual-save as well by habit.

Never had to go back past 3, so 20 is plenty for me.

Once I hit a checkpoint (e.g end of day),  I Save As a different name.


Kinda SOP - once you get burned 7 or 8 times ....  

John

Swiller


my recommendations... go win 7. Sonar x2 does not have win 8 drivers. Turn autosave in x2 every 10-20 changes. Turn off ram and processor power saving in the bios menu. do all the usual pc optimizations in windows for pro audio. If that dont work, yer buggered tbh.

"Sonar X2 does not have win 8 drivers"? Funny Sonar X2 is running fine on my Windows 8. BTW X2 doesn't come with drivers. 

I think you got my jist of what i was saying ..... if not ..
X2 is not officially win 8 supported. Drivers, compatability, patches, however you want to call it. If the OP is having problems, then runnig on win 8 seems to be a logical thing for him to change given the high  spec of his pc. I am running 7 here with no problems on a similar spec pc. Cake are doing a patch for x2, presumably to make it more reliable and compatible with win 8.
 
Most manufacturers of hardware and software will not claim their stuff is compatible with 8 until drivers and patches are released, due to the unknown and untested nature of it. So whilst win 8 may not be the issue, advising op to use a tried and tested os along with the other recommendations is good advice imho. There is a much better chance that devices attached to the pc are win 7 compatible vs win 8.
 
 

I should say that the main reason I posted this was because I was frustrated and felt the need to vent. Yes, it's my fault for not saving more often, but even if I lost a few minutes worth of work, it's precious inspiration down the tubes. The good news is, I'm not in the habit of saving often because X2 doesn't crash that much.

just a guess, but i think most of us are so passionate about saving because we've all lost data at one time or another. It's like a punch to the gut when it happens, especially when it crashes when you are doing something you have done a million times before.   

I feel your pain...

V

btw - first post from my android...wohoo (galaxy s3).  Couldn't post with my old phone.