Hello flight sim companions,after having built a new Pentium IV computer myself (it's not for the first time that I built a computer...but the first computer with WinXP) I'm encountering a strange sound problem:Alas the rest of the system performs exceptionally well my sound in games is somewhat messed up, I receive a constant stuttering and crackling which increases when I use any kind of input device (e.g. mouse, keyboard or joystick). In MSFS the throttle slider of my MS FFB2 causes the worst problems, but changing the power settings by keyboard or mouse is still awful. The phenomenon also occurs in other games as Train Simulator, Rally Championship 2000 or Operation Flashpoint.Sound performance of other applications doesn't show any of these problems. Media Player, CD playback, internet radio and all that stuff work absolutely flawless and - strangest thing about it all - I can playback the games' Wave soundfiles with the Media Player in perfect quality. But they don't work in the games.O.K. - that's the problem, here are my system specs:CPU: Intel Pentium IV 2,4 GHz Type BMainboard: Gigabyte GA-8PE667 (no frills vanilla edition). Chipset drivers and Intel Application Accelerator have been updated to the current versions. All BIOS settings (Default, Performance, etc.) have been checkedMemory: one Samsung original 512 MB PC333 moduleOS: MS Windows XP professional w/ SP 1 and all current updates installed, which includes DirectX 8.1 that's part of Win XPSound: AC97 onboard w/ WHQL driver v. 5.10 (not the one that came with the MB - but also happened with the original GBT AC 97 driver)Graphics: MSI GF4Ti4200 128 MB (mod. 8870, rev. 1.0) w/ current WHQL certified Detonator 40.72 (also happened with the 28.90 and 30.32 Detonator)"dxdiag" says everything's alright - checking the sound debug level with "dxapplet" showed that it was already set to "low". A test installation of DirectX 9 beta didn't bring any improvements. Installations of two PCI-soundcards (Creative Live! Player 5.1. Digital w/ several drivers and Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL w/ current driver) showed the same flaws, and even worse with the Creative card. Deactivating the Legacy Audio Driver in the system(which was a hint from a fellow flightsimmer) didn't have any positive effect either.Concerning my computer knowledge I've definitely reached my limits and I don't have any idea about the source of that problem. Maybe someone else knows. I would be very thankful for that, because I would definitely regret going back to Win 98SE considering the overall superiority of Windows XP as OS.Kind regardsThomas

Hi folks,done - tossing in the Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL 4.1 again with the latest drivers finally solved the problem (didn't believe it would happen in my lifetime yet - after having installed Windows XP for four times, not to count the different drivers for the sound hardware).CUThomas