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What are the minimum Windows PC requirements to run Cakewalk Sonar?


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Keep in mind that those are suggested specs.

I've run the early preview quite successfully on my Dell laptop with a 2 core i7-7600U. I do have hyperthreading enabled so it appears in Sonar to have 4 cores.

In comparisons, I haven't found it to be any more resource-hungry than CbB, which I have run successfully on a Core 2 Duo system with 4G RAM.

It very much depends on what you're doing and how you use it. Obviously, with a Core 2 Quad, you can't can't run a big pile of resource-hungry mixing plug-ins and/or VI's without doing some bouncing and freezing.

So, not to worry, if CbB runs fine on your system, Sonar should run fine as well.

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7 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Keep in mind that those are suggested specs.

I've run the early preview quite successfully on my Dell laptop with a 2 core i7-7600U. I do have hyperthreading enabled so it appears in Sonar to have 4 cores.

In comparisons, I haven't found it to be any more resource-hungry than CbB, which I have run successfully on a Core 2 Duo system with 4G RAM.

Thanks so much.  I'm running 4GB of RAM also. It really encourages creativity ?

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1 hour ago, Larry T. said:

Thanks so much.  I'm running 4GB of RAM also. It really encourages creativity ?

Sir Freeze-a-lot.

If I were recording solo acoustic guitar music with a vocal, I wouldn't find a Core 2 Quad with 4G of RAM restrictive at all. EQ, compression, maybe a little reverb. That's it. Could do it just fine without freezing or bouncing or any of that.

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There's no hard & fast rule for specs, as it's totally dependent on what you're doing. As a general rule however:

  • If you're low on RAM, avoid any sample based synths or any plugin that loads lots into memory.  Also Save / Reload your project regularly (or clear your undo history).
  • If you're low on CPU/cores, limit your plugins (that includes soft synths), and avoid CPU hungry reverbs - maybe consider a hardware synth module

Also, once you start running out of memory, you'll see a drastic drop in CPU performance as it attempts to swap blocks of memory to/from your HDD. So don't assume a CPU problem is to do with plugin CPU usage - it could be caused by low memory.

I would say the bare minimum is 4GB / 2Ghz / 4 Core... but only if you're recording just audio, using hardware MIDI, and/or using very CPU-lite soft synths that are either not sample-based, or have a very small sample set (e.g. TTS-1,  S-YXG50 etc ). The ProChannel / Sonitus suite should be fine for FX for most purposes.

I managed to record 16 simultaneous audio tracks while playing back 32 audio tracks (20 mins worth), on a 8GB/2Ghz /4 core MeLe silent PC (only slightly larger than a compact cassette case).   I did this using both CbB and Next.

I've also done the same on a 4GB/2.2Ghz/dual core laptop...  but this was running Sonar Platinum 32 bit.

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Can any of the Cakewalk devs tell me if Cakewalk by Bandlab reads the registry entry “UseGraphicsHWAccel” under the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Cakewalk\Sonar” if upon start up?

My instinct is telling me to set this to 1.  However, I am not sure if actually reads this key upon start up, or if this key and value is a carry over from older version of Cakewalk.  

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7 minutes ago, Promidi said:

Can any of the Cakewalk devs tell me if Cakewalk by Bandlab reads the registry entry “UseGraphicsHWAccel” under the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Cakewalk\Sonar” if upon start up?

My instinct is telling me to set this to 1.  However, I am not sure if actually reads this key upon start up, or if this key and value is a carry over from older version of Cakewalk.  

IIRC, I think the answer is either no, or at the very least it won't affect everything.  I think it's an overhang from the pre skylight interface days.

Maybe @Ben Staton can clarify?

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1 hour ago, mark skinner said:

Will Sonar run on win7 ? I know it's not the best option for the graphics but "will it run"      ms

Sonar will refuse to install on Windows 7. The new scalable UI relies on Windows API's that are only available in Windows 10 ( version 20H2 I think) and above.

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5 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Sonar will refuse to install on Windows 7

Thanks Mark for the conformation.

I pretty much expected that. I couldn't install the new product center on my Win7 pc.  So ..  I'm guessing if there ever is a continuing free CbB , it will also have the improved vector graphics and unavailabe with Win7.   

Thanks ..  mark

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9 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

I'm guessing if there ever is a continuing free CbB

Highly unlikely I think. So long as CbB remains available in any form it will most certaily never sport the vector graphics of Sonar.  And now that you bring it up, the Bakers might end up keeping it available indefinitely specifically to appease support the Win7 luddites.

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1 hour ago, David Baay said:

Highly unlikely I think. So long as CbB remains available in any form it will most certaily never sport the vector graphics of Sonar.

I made that assumption based on the statement that, all future releases will come from the new product center. Trying to downloaded it on win7 , point blank you are greeted with a notification stating "your OS is not supported" with no other options.   But ..  you know how assumptions are ..    ms

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13 hours ago, msmcleod said:

I would say the bare minimum is 4GB / 2Ghz / 4 Core... but only if you're recording just audio, using hardware MIDI, and/or using very CPU-lite soft synths that are either not sample-based, or have a very small sample set (e.g. TTS-1,  S-YXG50 etc ). The ProChannel / Sonitus suite should be fine for FX for most purposes.

I dispute the "4 core" part of that unless you're including virtual cores. My 2-core i7-7600U (16G RAM) notebook can run projects with multiple soft synths, including Chromaphone 3 and Ultra Analog VA-3, neither known to be light on CPU resources. Exponential Audio Stratus, etc. And it doesn't seem to be on the hairy edge of performance with that either.

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