Hi Laurie
I’m not sure if I had the same problem as you but I th out I’d let you know in case it is helpful for you or someone else. I had a pro tem with ASIO spiking and causing stuttering and clicks since I installed CB8 from CB6.5. I seem to have cured the problem by doing the following:
Regards
Thanks for the reply Fretdoc
Indirectly, I have already cleard the Temp directories, and this had no impact. I can;t find any Steinberg/Cubase related Prefernece directories though.
As update to let anyone who is interested in my progress on this know, I have still not resilved the issue.
Over the weekend I tried the following to no avail:
Things I think I have noticed along the way:
Unless I think of something else, the only options I have left to try are:
These last options are made even more difficult as I guess, apart from the great cost, windows will need to be revalidated…not sure I would want to go through this for a test.
So, I got home, enabled the onboard i7 graphics and ripped out my Leadtek Quadra 600 graphics card.
Problem solved.
I ran C8 pretty hard and all was fine…
SO, does anyone know of any incompatibility with NVIDIA QUADRA series graphics drivers? I have had no other problems with card or the drivers in graphics applications (Lightroom, Lightworks and watching digital TV/internet), so I don’t think it is actually broken.
While the onboard graphics works, it is not a solution (just a work around) so I need to know whether I should fix it with and different version of the drivers or by moving to a different type of card, or whether the card is, in fact, faulty and I need to replace it. Any similar experience or insight may help direct me in this.
Great news Laurie!
I’m afraid I can’t advise you re the graphics card. It might be worthwhile emailing Steinberg support about that specific card to check.
For help with the preferences check out this link -
I have Nvidia GTX500 series and Cubase 8 does exactly what you have described here. So I guess we just wait to see if this get resolved or not?
I no longer use Nvidia cards after a few issues I ran into years ago. I switched to AMD/Radeon and have not had any problems. HOWEVER - in either case, you only need the DRIVERS to the card installed - NOT the Control Center program. With Nvidia I found that I could not uninstall this Control program and this is what caused my problems. HOWEVER - with AMD - I can install the latest drivers (along with the Control Center, unfortunately, but then uninstall the AMD Control Center and be left with the newest drivers. Yeah, it’s a dance but it’s worth it.
It’s intersting to see this post because MANY people are using the Nvidia cards and seem to be fine with it. Oh well. Kudos to the OP for pulling the card and discovering the source of the problem. 
Thanks guys.
It’s comforting to see that other experience the same problem…
I thought I had it fixed for a short while. I set the nVIDIA 3d profile to Advanced Streaming and the problem vanished for a while. But then I guess I must have changed something else and I am back to square one (although with all the tweaks I have done it isn’t as bad as before and only fails on average once per play through of a song)
Currently I can keep working on the mixes I am finishing, but clearly I cant start any new projects (especially for other people ) as there is no guarantee that it won’t fail in the middle of someones perfect take…
I loaded up latency monitor, and it seems that the problem could happen concurrently with high latency to process detection…nVIDIA programs being implicated.
If anyone is running an nVIDIA (preferably Quadro 600, but I guess anything will do) card that works reliably please let me know what version of the drivers you are using, which 3D settings, and whether there was anything special you needed to do to make it work???
I reverted to version 333.11 of the nVIDIA driver and ran Cubase for over an hour without the problem reoccurring…guess that is where I will leave it.
It would be good if either Steinberg or nVIDIA could sort out the problem though. I am sure there will be a need to update to the latest driver one day.
C8 does the EXACT same problem for me with MSI twin frozr with chipset: Nvidia 560 TI I think this is an Nvidia driver vs Cubase problem…and from what I understand SOME drivers create this problem as SOME wont… I was using 306.57 and it did create the cpu spikes. So now I am trying 347.25 I will report how this would go…
I got the same problems… still no news…?
I’m having the exact same problem here as what the OP described…the longer I work, the worse these spikes and dropouts get. Finally after a time, I have to shut down Cubase and reopen it and then it’s fine for a while. The spikes eventually become constant, every couple seconds or so even with nothing playing back. Cubase can just be sitting there not doing anything and I can watch the ASIO meter bouncing up and down and peaking out every couple seconds.
I rarely post here, as I’m usually working happily away and don’t have any need to post, but this is driving me nuts, was never a problem with previous versions. I do have an NVidia GTX 760, others posted that they suspect that the graphics card is to blame, but I’ve been using Nvidia cards for years with no problems until upgrading to Cubase 8.
Can anyone else confirm if this has been a problem for them as well?
Same here. I formatted my machine in a desperate attempt to fix this issue but still the same. I am getting max spikes when i use midi keyboard to send a program change. I dont think i get the same spike when i change internally, will need to check this. I think its a driver issue as I was using the UR22 without issue and now I upgraded to UR44 have this problem. I thought it was to do with third party pluggins but nope, exactly the same after clean install and only Halion Sonic.
Dont suppose all the others having this problem have changed or updated any USB or MIDI drivers prior to this?
Has anyone logged this as an issue as I find it strange Steinberg have not acknowledged an issue as a result of all these post?
I have an MSI Nvidia GTX 670 graphics card which has never caused problems prior to C8. Does anyone else have same card on C8 without issues?
After posting yesterday, I tried changing audio drivers. I have an RME Fireface 800, which is as rock-solid as they get, but when I switched from the native Fireface ASIO driver to the ASIO DirectX driver, the problems went away. Of course the latency was completely unusable with that driver, but it did playback without problems. Not sure what that means, but there does seem to be some type of driver issue.
Has anyone tried asio4all? I will try tonight
I have not had a chance to try Asio4all as i was trying to fix a problem with Automap not working with Cubase * (which i have now resolved).
Reading through posts on here many people are suggesting that the problem with these spikes is down to Nvidia GFX. Even if this is true (I have MSI Nvidia GTX670) this is not the fault of Nvidia, its Steinberg. All other versions of Cubase have run without fault with the same GFX card, infact I have been exceptionally happy with performance given I am 90% VST with a couple of vocal tracks. I have never been in a position to have to freeze tracks, although I have done this out of interest and seen a massive immediate drop in the performance meter.
So if this is truly an Nvidia/C8 issue do Steinberg think it reasonable that people forking out good money for upgrades which are supposed to be improvements and not render your system useless to have to fork out for a new GFX card at each upgrade?
I realise that the majority do not have these issue nor an Nvidia card but that is of no consequence as next update it could be that they screw up the system working with another GFX card.
Imagine us guys (and girls) with this issue biting the bullet and forking out for a new GFX card and the next upgrade they does not work with this?
If this issue is down to GFX cards and I have read in the past other problems with particular GFX cards then its about time that Steinberg recommended a handful of cards that do work without issue. There are some people who like to play the odd game to relieve the stress of using Cubase (certainly this current C* release) and therefore choose a high end GFX card to run the high end games. Other are happy with a mid range card and other will no doubt be happy with the cheapest card possible that will run Cubase ok.
Rant over, I am going to log this as an issue as we do not seem to be getting any further forward. If I am expected to re-install 7.5 to fix the issue I then expect a refund for my C8 upgrade or a credit to the value for the next release.
I think this perfectly reasonable.
By the way mine happens every single time I change a patch on a non Steinberg plugin. Also with next to nothing running the VST performance meters are bobbing about mid way when i never usually see them move beyond 25% even with a heavy VST presence.
I am experiencing the same issue (W7 64) on two different computers (one with NVIDIA Quadro 4000 and Phenom II and another with NVIDIA Quadro K5000 and i7 4690). I saw it during the last year with cubase 5.5 and now with cubase 8). Always the same: Spikes/freezes type of issues in no matter what type of projects.
Interestingly: If I revert to NVIDIA Quadro Driver 312.69 WHQL or earlier the issues dissapear immediately (even without rebooting). Installing a later driver brings the issue back for me.
As far as I know Cubase is using OpenGL drawcalls (i think for the GUI and the video renderer that seems to be running even if no video content is used). I remeber reading a release note or something like that that NVIDIA changed something with OpenGL commands or command handling somewhere around the driver revisions 3xx or so. I also saw graphic driver related entries in the system event log on the older machine that correlated to the spike issues in my DAW. Not on my new one though that I am currently using - but nevertheless the symptoms look exactly the same.
Maybe someone can solve it the same way - though it’s kind of annoying to have to stick to outdated drivers…
I think the issue with me is solved 
BON-5544 PERFORMANCE: Fixed an issue with ASIO peaks when using audio drivers from RME
560ti, 347.52 same problem.
Hi
I’m running Cubase Pro 8 with SPL Crimson, and had that very same issue, but then I tryed A LOT, and last I tryed to remove the ASIO Guard, and everything just ran from there! 
Give it a go in Device Setup, hope it worx for ya…
Cheers from Copenhagen