Horrible audio dropouts with Sonar / Firestudio Project / Vista 64

[deadswitch]

Hey guys, haven't been here in quite some time.

I'm having horrible troubles. Just put together a mint-condition computer, with the following specs:

250gb SATA HD
Intel Core2 Quad Processor
4 gb RAM
PCI Firewire card

I have a PreSonus Firestudio Project, connected to the computer via the PCI Firewire card.

Headphones are plugged into the Firestudio, and it's set as the Master output (worked for me in the past with Adobe Audition just fine).

Now, when I record or play in Sonar, I get dropouts every single time, between two seconds and fifteen seconds into it, seemingly regardless of what I'm asking it to do.

I don't know much about the causes of dropouts, but I'm certain that the computer hardware setup I have should be capable of handling way more than I'll ever throw at it. So there must be something wrong with either the Firewire interface, the PCI card, or program settings in Sonar.

Can someone help me out? I'm really desperate to get this working.

Thanks much.

EDIT: I'm also running Windows Vista 64bit, with the Universal Controller drivers for the Firestudio...perhaps this is the cause?

[Arpatle]

Try this:
1) Use the dedicated ASIO driver of your soundcard, Multimedia or DirectX drivers are generally not preferred.
2) Increase the buffer size of your soundcard. This has a direct relation to latency.
3) Higher sample rates require more processing power, but the quality improvement is barely noticable. I believe that 44.1 or 48 kHz is sufficient.

[deadswitch]

Thanks for the help...

How do I change the audio driver to dedicated ASIO in Sonar 8? And by "buffer size of soundcard" do you mean the buffer size setting in Sonar, or something to do with the Firestudio Project itself?

[Arpatle]

I don't know Sonar, but look for a menu entry called "audio setup", "audio system", "audio hardware/drivers", "devices" or something like that. The manual of Sonar will give you an explanation how to setup your hardware. You should increase buffer sizes of your Firestudio. There is probably no buffer size setting of Sonar itself, but if so, play with it.