Reference Guide

Improving audio performance
Digital audio presents several challenges: it is large, using enormous amounts of disk space,
especially at higher sampling rates and bit-depths, and it is CPU-intensive. Added to this mix is the
wide variety of audio hardware available today. This section covers some common problems with
recording and playback and how to configure your computer and audio hardware for optimum
performance.
See:
“System configuration” on page 1105
“Improving performance with digital audio” on page 1114
System configuration
This section covers optimizing your system configuration to work with SONAR.
See:
“The Wave Profiler” on page 1105
“Enabling and disabling audio devices” on page 1107
“Sampling rates” on page 1108
“Bit depths and float resolution” on page 1109
The Wave Profiler
The Wave Profiler is a utility that analyzes the sound cards in your computer and determines the
best DMA (Direct Memory Access) settings for communicating with SONAR. These DMA settings
are displayed in samples, at the sample rates and bit depths your sound card supports. The Wave
Profiler also sets a value in milliseconds for the Buffer Slider, which controls mixing latency. The
Wave Profiler is unnecessary if you are using an ASIO driver.