Basically, it seems no matter what I do, if I have the hardware acceleration set to anything other than it's lowest setting, I get terrible jittering in any high-end games like HL2, F.E.A.R etc. I tried changing from the on-board sound (AC'97) to my Edirol UA-20 USB external card. Still the same problem. Now I'm not particularly bothered about losing sound quality, however many games won't give me any sound without at least some sort of hardware acceleration (Just Cause, Quake 4 and so on).

So long as I turn off the acceleration of my soundcard/s, in F.E.A.R. for example, I get awesomely smooth gameplay on the highest settings. If I leave acceleration on, but turn off all sound in the F.E.A.R. configuration program, once again everything runs perfectly smooth. I've tried removing drivers and reinstalling, updating, I've tried shutting down every other app running... still no luck. I've tried using both on-board sound and my Edirol, so I don't wanna go and spend £150 just yet on some Creative gaming specific card when it seems that with any card I may still have the problem.

Nothing is overclocked.

My spec is as follows:

Tagan dual engine 600w PSU
Gigabyte K8NF-9-RH Triton mobo
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ x2 dual core CPU
2GB Corsair PC3200 RAM
XFX Geforce 7950GT 512mb gfx
320GB Seagate SATAII hard-drive

Everything else is running smooth, my 7950 doesn't exceed 55c in game, approx 45c idle, my CPU peaks at about 45c full-load, 35 idle. I have all the latest drivers for everything as far as I know.
I'm pretty much positive it's a sound related issue.


If anyone can help me, has had the same problem, or has any ideas as to what may be causing my problem it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

Quick question, did you have the USB sound card on when you were using the onboard and vice versa?

Quote: Originally Posted by Reverend KWR Quick question, did you have the USB sound card on when you were using the onboard and vice versa?

Nope. I only got it from a friend because I had problems with the onboard.

Is your onboard disabled in your BIOS?

Quote: Originally Posted by TiZakit Is your onboard disabled in your BIOS?

No, but I shall try it and let you know if it fixes my problem.

EDIT:

Fixed! ^_^

Now I feel like a bit of an idiot for not thinking of that. I guess we all miss obvious things from time to time and it's in those moments that the next man's brain comes in handy.

HL2 stutters occasionally, like every 5 minutes, but F.E.A.R. is now immaculate.

Many thanks.