Joey,
The engine audio for Nascar Racing 2003 Season has changed a bit from
2002, making it supposedly "more realistic." This, in fact, may be what you
are experiencing. The sound can be helped, however, by lowering your sound
hardware acceleration level:
1) Go to "Start" click "Run..." and type "dxdiag".
2) Click on the "Sound" tab.
3) Under "DirectX Features" there should be a slider bar entitled "Hardware
Sound Acceleration Level". Slide the bar to the left to "Basic acceleration"
and click "OK".
As for visual performance, here are Sierra's minimum system
requirements:
Pentium II 450MHz, 64 MB RAM, and a 16MB Direct 3D compatible video card.
Before you decide what kind of card you want or think you need, check
out your motherboard to make sure you have a free PCI slot and an AGP slot.
Take a look at this example motherboard:
http://www.msi.com.tw/images/product_img/mbd_img/6570G.jpg
The 5 white slots in the lower left quarter of the board are PCI slots, and
the red slot above and off-centered from those is an AGP slot. You may also
check the manual that came with your motherboard or visit the manufacturer's
website for more information or if you have difficulty determining whether
you're AGP-equipped or not.
The average new video card today comes with 64MB or 128MB of RAM, with
more expensive high-end cards using 256MB. nVidia and ATI are the two most
common video card manufacturers, making the GeForce and RADEON product lines
respectively.
The GeForce FX 5900 and RADEON 9800 Pro are two fastest and most
powerful cards you could buy and would certainly be able to handle your
game, but both have a pricetag close to $500. For a solid middle-range card,
however, you can expect to pay $100 - $150. Choosing a card is largely
personal preference, as these newer products are so similar, so find one
seems to suit your price range.
In addition, make sure your processor is fast enough; though the minimum
requirements list only a 450MHz processor, you'll want at least 1GHz for
good performance. As far as RAM goes, I'd recommend at least 512MB of SD or
DDR RAM (check your motherboard documentation to see which it supports).
Hope that helps!
~Andy~
