Ok, so I have the latest sound drivers, I have SP2 for Windows XP (if that helps any), and in EVERY other game my sound runs perfectly.

My sound card is reported as Realtek AC97 Audio, which I've had great experiences with (mainly because it's reliable), the only game I have problems with is Soldat.

In fact, there's a full album of mp3's that completely refuse to play - it just skps over them, causing me to lag quite a bit (that's with an AMD 2800+ as well, so it's literally flying from one to another), then it starts to play bits and whatnot, but never gets settled. Not until I exit my current game that is; when I'm back at the menu, the song feels content to play 'til the cows come home.

I have to use Winamp instead, which is silly, since I partially bought Soldat for the integrated mp3 support.

(The album in question is Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake [great black metal band, check them out if you'd like] - variable bitrate).

Anyway, the sound eventually stutters and skips if I'm playing any other mp3, or no mp3's at all for that matter.

I'm quite frustrated, to say the least.

Any help would be appreciated, and DON'T tell me the AC97 codec is crap - yes, AC97 is a codec, not a specific sound card. I have an nforce2 chipset on an ASUS mobo, 512 mb of pc3200 DDR, AMD Athlon XP 2800+ w/ 512KB cache, 333 mhz FSB, 120 gb WD hdd, ATi Radeon 9600 XT 128 mb 8x agp - it's not top of the line, but it runs anything I throw at it - even Doom 3 (wewt).

Anyway, please help, or just forward this to the head developer who's name I've forgotten.

Michal Marcinkowski isn't the head developer, he's the only developer [;)]

Someone probably used a hacked codec to encode the MP3s/album or something else that just isn't supported by the FMOD library.
You could use EasyLame to re-encode the MP3s.
If the re-encoded MP3s play normally in Soldat, then it was the encoder's/ripper's "fault".

Do all the other sounds work well in Soldat?

Yes, all the other sounds work fine in Soldat, however if I'm playing an mp3 they tend to stutter now and then which is a tad annoying (the mp3 stutters as well).

I'll try that program you suggested. Much thanks.

Alright! I decoded them to raw WAV then re-encoded them to a supported format (well, supported by FMOD, I should have thought of that) - and now everything is just peachy.

:)

Thanks a lot!