Since you are using Windows XP you should be able to lower sound acceleration in dxdiag

Thanks, I just tried it.
setting DXdiag sound hardware acceleration to basic (2/4): problem still there
setting DXdiag sound hardware acceleration to none (1/4): problem still there, though lag times seemed slightly shorter.

Wish I could test a different soundcard, I have like a dozen, but ISA and PCI only. They won't connect to the above systems.

Then again, the hardware is the most common stuff sold these days, it is just that the OS and the games are getting a little dated. I wonder, why am I the only one noticing this? Even my eee PC (atom N280) and Core2Duo (T5600) do a better job with these games, and both use Realtek audio.

Same driver version?

Edit

I don't think so, I will try tomorrow.

My suspicion has changed direction.
It is now in the direction of the notebook Hard Disk: WD Scorpio Blue 320GB
which used to be in the notebook, but is now in the desktop.

It seems this Hard Disk spins down often. I wil try the WD Align tool for Windows XP, as recommended on the label, and see if it makes any difference. Edit: no noticable improvement. I'll buy an SSD and keep this Disk for storage only.

Check the Power settings in Windows. Should be possible to keep it from spinning down in there as well.

I changed the Harddisk firmware idle timer setting with a DOS tool called WDIDLE3. I used a DOS bootable flash disk.

'WDIDLE3 /R' reported idle timer was originally 4 seconds.
'WDIDLE3 /S300' makes this 5 minutes instead.

Lets see how it behaves now...

Edit: behaviour is still poor with the notebook Hard Disk. But I tried another 3.5" Hard Disk and it was much better with that one.

I had this problem in some games, setting core affinity to a single core fixed the problem for me on multi-core processors.