A few months ago when 8.0.1 was released I encountered an issue where the entire project would freeze for approximately 30 seconds and then return to normal. The trigger for this occurrence was executing a complex command in Cubase. By complex I mean anything other than a fader move or a track selection or other trivial command whose only effect was executing a UI update.
So, for example, adding or deleting a track or updating/instantiating plugins would cause this freeze to happen. The freezing was somewhat random and did not occur with every complex command execution. I would say the incidence was approximately 25%. I managed to trace the problem to ASIO Guard. As long as ASIO Guard was deactivated the problem would not occur.
Fast forward to 8.0.2 and the problem persisted. I thought it had been resolved in that projects created with 8.0.2 did not appear to exhibit this problem.
Recently, the issue returned even in projects built in 8.02. I have now traced it to a single plugin – Guitar Rig 5 causes this problem to occur. To remedy, disable ASIO Guard in the plugin manager for Guitar Rig 5.
The benefit is no more freezing. The cost is that Guitar Rig no longer benefits from ASIO Guard and the entire project consumes more resources than before.
For me this is a worthwhile trade-off.