Reference Guide

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Improving Performance with Digital Audio
Improving Audio Performance
• SONAR 4 may add extra groups to the project.
Re-saving a SONAR 5 project file in SONAR 4 may permanently remove the project data described
above.
Improving Performance with Digital Audio
When a project contains many tracks of digital audio or when many real-time effects are in use, your
computer may have difficulty keeping up during playback. When this occurs, you'll hear portions of
the audio drop out, stutter, or pop. Or maybe your project responds slowly to real-time effects and
volume changes. In an extreme case audio playback may stop altogether. If you experience a
dropout, a dialog appears with suggestions for fixing the problem. This section covers performance
issues specific to digital audio, including how to get the more tracks of audio, more real-time effects,
lower latency and how to fix audio dropouts.
For more information see:“Getting the Most Out of Your PC” on page 851, “Mixing Latency” on page
853 and “Reduce GUI updates to improve playback performance” on page 856.
Getting the Most Out of Your PC
Mixing Latency
Dropouts and Other Audio Problems
Reduce GUI updates to improve playback performance
Getting the Most Out of Your PC
The maximum number of audio tracks you can expect to play on your computer depends on the
audio sample rate, the speed of your hard disk, and the speed of your computer’s CPU.
The effect of your CPU on audio track throughput is much more difficult to quantify. Throughput is
affected by the type of chip, clock speed, the number and type of real-time effects in use, cache size
and settings, and many other factors.
There are a variety of things you can do to increase the number of audio tracks and effects you can
play on your computer, as outlined in the following table:
Approach How it works
Avoid compressed disks If you use DoubleSpace, Stacker, or some other disk compression
system, it will slow down playback of audio tremendously. Configure
your system so that the Data directory is on a hard disk that is not
compressed.
Exit other programs The more programs you have open, the more CPU cycles you are taking
away from your project. Exit any programs unnecessary to the task at
hand.
Table 177.