Reference Guide

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Improving Audio Performance
Improving Performance with Digital Audio
problems, if you hear dropouts try increasing the mixing latency.
Sound cards differ in the precision of their timing, what size audio buffers they require, and other
characteristics. SONAR has a utility called the Wave Profiler that can usually automatically detect
the type of sound card that you have installed and configure its settings for best performance. If your
sound card is a well-known model, you can usually use SONAR without having to change many
audio settings. However, if you experience synchronization problems between MIDI and digital
audio, like to use different sample rates and bit depths, or want to experiment with mixing latency,
you need to do some optimization yourself.
See:
The Wave Profiler
Status Bar/CPU Meter/Disk Meter
ASIO Drivers
SONAR supports ASIO drivers. You are limited to a single sound card when using an ASIO driver.
To Use an ASIO Driver
Use the following procedure to enable SONAR for use with an ASIO driver.
1. Select Options > Audio to open the Audio Options dialog.
2. In the Audio Options dialog, click the Advanced tab.
3. In the Playback and Recording section, select ASIO from the Driver Mode drop-down menu.
4. Restart SONAR.
ASIO sample position
UseHardwareSamplePosition=<0, 1>, default = 0
This variable applies to ASIO mode only and controls whether SONAR internally compute the
sample position based on buffer switch calls or uses the ASIOGetSamplePosition reported value to
retrieve the driver reported value.
Some drivers change the reported sample position based on how long a buffer switch took to
complete and this can cause problems since SONAR expects the reported position to be in sync
with the number of buffers actually streamed.
This Aud.ini variable defaults to 0.
Queue Buffers
SONAR allows you to set the number of queue buffers in the Audio Options dialog box, in the
General tab. A higher number of queue buffers will take longer to fill, and therefore cause an
increase in latency. A lower number of queue buffers decreases latency, but may cause “dropouts.”
The default setting is 2. For more information, see: Mixing Latency, and Dropouts and Other Audio
Problems.