trying to record my guitar but im not very good and the timing gets messed up whats the best latency, i have it set at 200 or 500 ms , but it sounds like its coming in early now how is that even possible.

try 256 or 128. Sample size should go up in multiples, like ram. eg. 16,32,64,128 etc.

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it seems no matter how good i play , i always gotta move the track around a bit and then it sounds normal.

What audio interface you using? And what software?

im using my laptop soundcard with ardour gtk , but i guess i should be recording on my tascam 24 track recorder, but i didnt figure out transferring files usb yet. to drag the files over and mix on ardour.

Laptop sound cards are notoriously crap. You should buy an audio interface if your looking to record on your computer. You could also try asio4all as the asio driver. I use this on the crap pcs at school and it shorts out midi latency, although I ain't tried it for recording.