If it's not some kind of virus, it sounds to me like it may be an overheating problem. What kind of processor/video card are you using and how hot are they getting? Do you have adequate cooling in your computer? Are your fans clogged with dust? Download and install Speedfan (http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php) and after playing for 30 or 40 minutes, see how hot your processor is. You can't tell if your video card is overheating without some kind of external sensor, but typically it will c
Kindred192
As per the thread I linked to, updated drivers with an edited inf file don't solve this problem. It's something to do with the way vista interacts with these particular cards. The only apparent way to fix the problem is to go back to XP until new drivers are released for these cards -- which it doesn't look like will happen unfortunately.
I installed and ran up SOAS and was upset to find my video AND audio to become stupidly choppy whenever the game was drawing objects as simple as the planets in the main menu. It turns out that the stuttering/choppy sound is just the side effect of a much more serious problem. My game ran very slowly and every now and then it would completely freeze for a few seconds. I tried new drivers, new memory, more memory, and always the same thing. It ran like crap. My CPU sat around 40% and