Gateway Sound Card Problem and Fix

[509th Bob]

I had uploaded to 1.80, had problems (see different thread), reloaded anew to 1.80, and began to experience sound card problems that created aural "stuttering" during combat execution plays, and mouse lock-up during the length of the stuttering. I had erroneously thought this was a game-related problem with 1.80.
With the help of dtravel [&o] I re-booted to 1.60, but immediately began having the same sound stuttering that had never previously existed with my earlier 1.60 game. I examined the auto-updates and found that Gateway had provided a Realtek (I think) sound "update." After gutting my computer's audio last night, I reloaded the 2005 version of Realtek. This corrected the stuttering immediately.

The latest 2006 "update," sent around early May 2006, is the source of the problem. I don't know if Matrix can "fix" this, or whether Realtek should "fix" it, but at least any affected gamers should know of this problem.

Bob