By default the number of HARDWARE AUDIO CHANNELS is set to 0. This disables hardware audio. e.g. the Soundblaster Audigy2 has 64 channels, while the X-FI has 128. Some cards report the number of channels incorrectly and this can cause problems.
The default setting is adequate for sound cards which support hardware 2D/3D sound acceleration. Hardware audio acceleration helps with game processing. However, in some cases the audio card can run out of hardware channels. When this happens during periods of intense battles (e.g. in an intense first person battle), some sounds (e.g. your weapon) will tend to cut off (e.g. you can only hear the weapon fire every other shot).
You can alleviate the issue by disabling hardware audio processing entirely. This will not result in a noticeable performance degredation because the game's audio mixer is very fast.
To disable hardware audio processing, go to the game's configuration screen and set the number of HARDWARE AUDIO CHANNELS to 0. Quit and restart the game for the changes to take effect.
