Welp looks like I am in the market for a sound card! Disabling the onboard audio (Realtek) did the trick.

same problem i had then. i also have realtek as my onboard.

Thanks for reminding me about it.

I did some more searching and like you said it's pretty widespread. Now I just need to find a decent (read: not terribly expensive) sound card.

no problem. yeah its very common. im surprised they haven't tried to fix it or anything. its been happening since BC2 :shakes head:

anyways here's the sound card i got. it does the work but im not sure if its mine or what, but when i talk in ventrilo with this soundcard it has a high pitched sound according to other people. but its not extremely loud or anything so i didn't bother to exchange it for a new one.

Newegg.com - SIIG IC-510111-S1 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card - Sound Cards

I ended up picking up this card: Newegg.com - ASUS XONAR_DG 5.1 Channels PCI Interface Xonar DG Sound Card

Should have it Monday.

Let me tell you, BF3 SUCKS without sound!

Try updating your Realtek drivers. They're out there, you just need to go to Realtek's site to get em...thats what I did.

I did... no dice.

So the system is fairly stable now with realtek disabled, however Crossfire is a PITA. It just doesnt seem to want to work in BF3. 1st gpu is loaded 100% and the other about 70, however there is no fps improvement over one card. I need to see how it works in other games, because this aparently is heavily driver dependent and bf3 has poor support for it right now.

Kind of frustrating after blowing $700+ :)

Sorry if someone already posted this but has everyone seen the unofficial battlelog for android?
https://market.android.com/details?i...R0bGVsb2ciXQ..
Great for stat whores like myself.

Since the last patch I now have an issue with the game not loading after a map change. The screen goes blank and says loading but never finishes. I have to close the game and then go back into the server. I'm always starting out behind everyone this way......

I'm frustrated with EA/DICE at how horribly optimized the game is right now.

I've been playing this game Deus Ex: Human Revolution that came free with my 6950s and it's been awesome -- 100% usage of both GPUs. Flawless performance. Pretty good. If only I could get BF3 to function the same.

Another thing I realized: I prefer the type of graphics in DX:HR to the "photorealistic" style of BF3. I don't know why... it just has a better feel to it when you're in an obvious gaming world.

not gonna lie, but I've kind of wanted one of those arms after playing that game..

Hopefully they'll update the game or drivers for better performance for dual GPUs. I know they've done that with a lot of their other games.

Yeah it's a pretty badass game. I'm hooked on it! Especially since BF3 won't work worth a damn.

So new sound card is in. It works great. Unfortunately I had to sandwich it in between my two 6950s since they take up so much damn space. It doesn't seem to have hurt cooling at all thanks to my two 140mm side fans blasting air on the cards.

Sound quality is great. Even with a 2.1 system... it's a night and day difference between the sound from the card and the sound from the Realtek mobo sound. The game sounds AMAZING.

Now if I could only get Crossfire to scale properly.

Maybe you should have nutted up and went nVidia? Mine works fine :) lol