My FSX and SP1 seem to be working fine, except....when I hear sound cracks and skips. Then it stutters in the sim! Creative's latest Vista Drivers installed. I have the X-Fi card installed from Dell. I hear the sound skipping when the music comes on in the FSX splash screen as well!I will buy another sound card if you feel there is a better one for Vista and FSX.I look forward to any advice from forum members. See my specs in my signature if you have any recommendations. Thanks.

This is usually a problem of onboard sound, where you have to use"dxdiag" and set the sound acceleration to basic as it competes withthe graphics. You have a separate card though - have you removedall trace of the onboard sound drivers ?Tom

Stan I have the same sound card as you and I have the latest Creative drivers as well. I heard exactly what you are hearing. I just went to Start/run then type dxdiag and go to the sound tab.. where it says Direct X Features, instead of full acceleration on the slider I backed it down to Basic acceleration and I no longer hear it. Not sure why this helped me, but it did. I'm just a little ticked that a hi end soundcard such as this cannot take advantage of full-acceleration. Oh well. Hope this works for you.

I have a Audigy 4 Pro - and I seem to get some stutters too - seems to be on the missions when the "discussions" are going on.normal sounds, ATC etc are fine.but its the chit-chat in the missions that seem to cause some minor grief with my PC - not a major problem though.

My card is an audigy 2 (one of the cheapest I could find from newegg)I had no problems with sound until I bought TestDrive Unlimited and it hadsound problems and so I set acceleration back to basic and NOW I havecrackling and popping in flight simulator. I just have to remember to change the acceleration dependent on the game.I have no idea why your 'better card' would give you sound problems.It shouldnt. sorry I cant be of more help. Maybe you should pick up an Audigy 2 (OEM)

I know this will sound strange, but do you have a USB Wireless-N network adapter? Most of the N standard of wireless adapters have major problems with Vista. I have this problem and it requires a band-aid fix until the drivers can correct the problem.

Could be the PCI latency setting for your sound card. Download the PCI Latency Tool from http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951 adjust the latency setting for your sound card to 32 (remember to apply the changes using the Settings | Apply menu item) and see if that solves the problem. edit: while you're at it, if you have an AGP video card, adjust its latency setting to 32 also. This often cures micro-stutters and smooths out in-game performance. Note that PCI-express video cards do not have PCI latency timings.

Did all you guys disable onboard sound in your BIOS?

in my case- no - but disabled in Device Manager.the problem I've had in the past is that I sometimes use the digital out on the on-board .. but enabling it and disabling it as and when needed in bios doesn't seem to work too well .. as when I did it with XP - it quite often treated it as a "hardware" change ... and therefore after several instances re-activiation etc.I'm assuming the same with Visa but can't be sure.I remember a phone-call to Microsoft to re-activate one Sunday at 6am - when I had to re-activate just because I enabled the 2nd network port on my motherboard via bios. Pain in the neck.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm on my way to try some of your suggestions. I'll let you know if something works. I appreciate your input.

>Thanks for all the advice. I'm on my way to try some of your>suggestions. I'll let you know if something works. I>appreciate your input.>Hi mate, I had good performances but while flying often some stutters... but I have tried {JOBSCHEDULER} for my Quad Core processor (Phil Taylor Tweak) I remember you so I have same XFI sound card like you, after it my problem gone! flying smooth.By the way... I recommend you Windows XP Pro SP2, Vista sucks.