constant sound static and major slowdown on leaders

[kyrillos27]

I've done a lot of searches on these topics, but I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for. I've seen some weird fixes for static in Warlords, but I'm running Beyond the Sword. The sound is just a constant run of static, starting with the launcher saying Init Sound until I exit the game. All wonder movies run smoothly, and this static is only louded when the sound is louder. It only stops when the game stops. I can even mute my speakers and the static still sounds. Its really odd, but that is what happens.

I am running on a laptop with SigmaTel Audio and have the latest drivers. I have the patch 3.13 and other than all this, the game runs fine. Oh, my graphics card is an Intel. I'm a college student, so I couldn't quite afford the really nice graphics cards.

My friend, on his one year old alienware laptop has a more major problem. When we do multiplayer together, he experiences major slow downs starting in the mid game eras, say classical. When other civ leaders (AI, as we only play with each other) contact him, for open boarders for example, his computer slows down, and twice out of two days has been disconnected from the game. Its really frusterating because his slowdowns affect me too. The graphics are extremely horrible.

He is running with patch 3.13, and I'd assume he has ATI or something better than me, because its an Alienware. His sound is fine. Its just when leaders contact him.

Any suggestions or questions to clarify will be welcome.
Max

Edit:
We are both running Win XP SP2

 

[ori]

for the static: try disabling the microphone/voice capture - even if you don't have one - in the ingame audio options AND in the my games\beyond the sword\civilizationIV.ini by setting EnableVoice = 1 to 0
for the lag during contacts: try installing the static Leaderheads and maybe also the static movies (same link).
Of course I would first try updating the graphics driver/firmware if that does not help: go static

Welcome to Civfanatics

 

[kyrillos27]

Ori, that was amazing. I played around with your suggestion with Civ and discovered that the disabling sound was only possible through my docs/my games/ ect. and making enablesound = 0. had I only done it through the in game procedure, there would be no effect, even though I turned the settings all the way to the lowest sound setting.

I have yet to try my friend's computer. i just woke up and he is in his math class class right now. But I'll update when I try and fix that through your suggestion. Thanks

 

[kyrillos27]

The static leader patch didn't work in MP. And on his computer, he doesn't have any other updates on his video card that he could use.