I half remember my original copy having this as well years ago, but there is a minor (but quite annoying) pop or crackle continuously audible over the ambient sound.

Anyone else have this and is there perhaps a fix? Thanks!

Creative X-fi on W7/64

I remember this from my original disc too, and yeah, it's here as well. Maybe it's just how it's supposed to be.

I'm getting this too, but have never had it one my disc copy. But this is also the first time I've used a Creative soundcard on it, so maybe that's it.

I have these little cracking sounds too but I have no special soundcard (only the integrated chipset). Maybe it's a little issue related to the original sound files...

The only PC I did not have this problem with was a Win 98 one.

I have this problem but I do believe it's been a while that I also had this issue the 1 time I had my CD version of the game running on an old laptop I used to have.

So it may just be something to do with the sound files themselves.

You know the opening FMV scene is also different and the voice over for that actually seems of a lesser cut, doesn't sound as good as the PSOne or Dreamcast verisons, sounds very "read" and less acted.

It may very well be possible that for some reason they used not quite finished, unpolished sound files for the PC version of the game. It would actually make some sense, I mean why else would the PC opening scene have a completely different and worse voice over narration from Michael Bell (Raziel)?

It is quite true they were rushed and had to cut the game short to begin with maybe there were further along with the PSone version over the PC but figured the PC version was "good enough" leaving some of the audio not completely cleaned up.

Then of course polished and upgraded the Dreamcast version even more in the year they had till it's release.

At least it's not all that bad and I tend to forget about it once i get engrossed in the game.
I'm on my way to Zephon.

Same situation here. The sound is crackling annoyingly. I had this problem on XP, I have it on Vista and now on 7. I'm pretty sure I didn't experience that on my Win 98 machine though. It was so long ago that I can't be 100% certain...

As far as the inferior overall quality of the game is concerned - other scenes were messed up in PC version as well, e.g. the first Kain-Raziel face-off in the game lacks the great music of the PS1 version.

compare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=U7jhw2wdctw#t=1980s
and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn3lMHTml2k

Windows xp:

the game is not only popping a crackling, but there's a bit of stuttering and miliseconds skipping. At first i didn't enable win98 compatibility and the sound was completely cut with pieces of silence, repeating itself so game was unplayable. Now on win98 compatibility it's still cracking, popping, stuttering, skipping, but not as much, so you can actually hear what's going on, but....

For all those who have problem with sound stuttering, check this thread:

http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=45761

it seems it might be caused by the sound card incompatibility.

then i'm really unlucky becouse i have two soundcards and both are having the problem.

No crackling on my titanium x-fi on windows 7 64.