Has anyone else experience this or can they confirm?
 
If I move my mouse cursor around in Sonar 8.5.2 during playback, the playback becomes choppy, stuttered. The more I move my mouse around, the choppier the playback gets. If I hold the mouse cursor steady, playback becomes normal again.
 
Ok, this is even stranger. If I open a property box for any effect or soft synth and move it all over the screen during playback, playback is normal, no choppiness.
 
I just installed an ATI Radeon 5450 video card. For sure it can handle the graphics on Sonar 8. Any idea what could be going on here?
 
Possible bug in Sonar 8.5.2?

Only thing I can think of is that if you installed the video card after sonar already installed it may still be looking for your original sound card and is now using the motherboard instead of the new card.  Maybe try running the 8.5.2 update patch again to see if the Sonar config  finds your new card

I'm talking about a video card here man, not a sound card.

Why did you install the ATI when you already had the nVidia?

The ATI card used passive cooling, no fan noise. Plus it has lower power consumption. And therein lies the problem.

By enabling pointer trails on the mouse cursor, the graphics card has to work a little harder so it doesn't go idle as fast. This seems to have fixed the problem. Very strange indeed. But brings up an interesting point. Why is moving the mouse cursor around in track view so graphics intenstive in Sonar and could it possibly be the cause of all the audio dropouts and stutters people are experiencing on low end laptops with mediocre graphics?

I meant Video card instead of sound card in "it may still be looking for your original sound card" statement.  Sorry

Possibly because they're using a complex program on a "low end laptop" which is a very bad idea. I've been using DAW apps for over 10 years (3 different computers) and I can move my mouse around all over the place and it won't cause dropouts or stuttering.

IRQ conflict between the mouse and the new video card?  You might be able to see this in Device Manager.

If the video card is PCIe, do you have another slot you can try it in?

riojazz


IRQ conflict between the mouse and the new video card?  You might be able to see this in Device Manager.

If the video card is PCIe, do you have another slot you can try it in?

Good point riojazz but if that's the case, then why does enabling pointer trails on the mouse cursor solve my issue? I'm just scratching my head in disbelief. At least I stumbled upon this workaround or I'd be pulling my hair out by now! LOL.

Hmmmm....I too have an ATI card (Radeon HT 2400 XD) and occasionally have this issue. So enabling pointer trails resolved the issue? 
I guess I'll try it. Thanks,
Randy