attalus
  
I am interested in the Low-Latency performance improvements of X2 as well. I wish someone from Cakewalk would talk about this! I just bought X1 to get X2 for free in large part because of Low-Latency improvements, i hope i won't be disappointed. This is important to me and Audio engine improvements are amongs the few things i care about. I hope i won't be disappointed.
 
Thank you. That was the point of the original post but although some good discussion here it should have been in another post and I am still not warm and gushy on the X2 upgrade. MAybe I am missing something but although I've seen references to low-latency improvements I've seen nothing to what expectation that may raise.
 
 

Okay guys, here's the X2 update on my unique use-case (composing and mixing into a live, EDM-oriented, mastering chain): No improvement at the high-latency I'm working at. I was not expecting this to change, as I think the X2 audio engine tweaks are geared more toward low-latency cases.

One thing that did help my drop-outs was Guitarpima's suggestion to bump up the MIDI buffer. I got my one VST to finally play without dropouts (with my fx chain). But, alas, it's still too taxing on that single core it wants to use (see entire thread for more info) and still drops-out.

What's interesting is that even though two cores are not being utilized and also one core is clearly being favored (or, in fact, used exclusively as Noel has kindly pointed out), it does seem to be using more than one core for this serial chain. The other ancillary stuff going on (screen updates, etc.) doesn't seem to warrant taxing two more cores (could be wrong). Noel might confirm this (a second time).

So, with regret, for now, I'm gonna have to mostly stick with Reaper for this unique workflow.

My workflow issue aside, first blush, X2 is smokin' hot! Great work, guys. In particular, I love the darker more refined and professional color scheme and UI details, clip drag-area, right-click range selection, selection mirroring between track and console, automation lanes (though I wish there was no arbitrary height limit on the lanes). And, ironically, the audio engine is super performant -- even better than Reaper, core-utilization decisions aside. This beast of a chain I have only uses 20% cpu -- that's amazing.

Cheers.

I'm no expert here, and all this talk of cores and stuff goes right over my head, but ever since I've turned off "core parking" I've found that, in general, all of my cores except for the first one are all used pretty much equally.

I'll sneak back behind my rock now...

What exactly is "core parking" and how do you turn it off???

yeah, it's good to bring up core parking, disabling that is a good practice for DAWs in general (yup, mine's disabled).

the cliff notes version of this thread is that Sonar is optimized for low-latency performance (a good thing) over something called pre-buffering (read thread for more on this). basically, this means that when Sonar deals with a serial single path (like you get with a mastering chain) it must crunch it all on single core. So, if you have a good-sized chain that won't fit on a single core, the engine will drop-out. Most users won't run into this as Sonar will nicely utilize those extra cores for other tracks, effects chains on those tracks, and other app-related tasks. Overall, Sonar is very good at multi-core, just not in my non-typical use-case.

it's only a problem when you're doing a chain that can't be broken up into parallel (a.k.a. "track") signal paths. the chain i have hovers around 20% and occasionally peaks into the 30% range, which means on my 4 core system 25% of the total cpu output = 1 core (25% x 4 = 100%). so during those peaks i go over my 1 core allotment (for that particular chain) by about 5% and get the drop-outs.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1861804

I'm posting this for the archives, in case it helps anyone, in future.

I finally found a really solid solution to my desire for a real-time, ITB, mix-into mastering chain, with Sonar X2. Quick recap: The mastering chain is too demanding -- Audio drops outs like crazy. My computer can't be faster, it's a liquid-cooled Ivy Bridge. I can't use a separate computer as I can't afford buying a second ilok licence for all my waves plugins, etc. The computer is fast enough, but Sonar won't break up that mastering chain across more than one core.

This solution was inspired after trying the Studio One V2 demo (nice DAW, btw) and noticing that it, too, was putting the entire serial, stereo bus effects on only one core (and getting audio drop-outs) exactly like X2. Sonar seems to even be a little better performing than Studio One, in this regard.

My solution: I use Sonar's "external fx" out to go into Reaper (running in live, record-enabled monitoring mode only). Reaper just acts as a dumb VST rack. Then, out of Reaper back into Sonar -- for just the mastering chain portion.

Bam. That's it.

Reaper has settings to limit which cores it uses, so I set it to use the last four (Sonar can then hog the first four all it wants). Reaper's audio engine will spread the mastering across its four allocated cores, so there is plenty of horse-power there for the "external" effect.

To avoid buying another audio interface, I found a way to "hack" the one I have by creating an all-digital loopback on it. I just took two cables for my MOTU 896HD (Virtual Audio Cables were not working well) -- an optical cable, looped from the ADAT 1/2 out to the ADAT 1/2 in (a closed loop). Then I did the same on the AES/EBU 1/2 digital out/in. Pretty sneaky, ey? So, it's Sonar ADAT port out, to Reaper's ADAT port in, then Reaper AES/EBU out, to Sonar AES/EBU in -- the Sonar external effect module completes the connection.

It works so slick. Nothing important is lost via the 24 bit digital connection, so I can do a commercial-grade Ozone dither at the end of the chain (in Reaper) and what comes back into Sonar it's not altered in any way (no clipping overs, etc.)

If you didn't have an audio interface that you could do this sort of loopback workaround, you could just buy another audio interface with a digital connection (like ADAT lightpipe that most have) that's compatible with the digital connection of your primary interface.

Basically, this is a way unlock the full potential of today's really fast computers and keep it all in one box. I think mastering is the main use-case for this, but perhaps there are other uses.

Anyway, I'm very happy with this solution. Everything is working more smoothly now, as it's taking that burden of my main DAW.

Cheers.