thanks for the reply. no that is def not the problem. the audigy uses an orange, green, and then black. they are def connected correctly. i get the surround sound to work perfectly but i have to go through the steps above. on all my other games it works fine. it is just this game. it has to be some type of glitch in the game. i must be the only lucky person with this problem. i love the game but this is annoying. i am hoping that if they ever release the patch it will solve this problem. i am thinking about uninstalling and reinstalling the game, but i feel this will not solve the problem.