Myst 4 + Xec 2.6 = Audio Problem Options

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A few years ago I bought a professionally done chipped Xec 2.6 PAL Xbox principally so I could use the NTSC dashboard prog scan options but also so I could play some import games. I was a total newbie to this whole thing and didn't have a new larger HDD or anything else added. It took me some time even to realise I needed Enigmah to access the NTSC dashboard options.

After that I had no problem using it for what I wanted except for
NTSC only Myst 4: Revelation. The audio track 'hiccupped' each time a new scene loaded, as though the image and audio loading were temporarily out of sync. I thought this was normal and played through the entire game like that and thought nothing of it.

That was until I accidentally discovered NTSC Myst 4 is actually one of those region free games and will play on an unmodded PAL XBox. Thing is it plays perfectly on a PAL machine ie. without the audio 'hicupp', the BGM and SEs run smoothly and continuously throughout each scene loading process as, no doubt, it was supposed to.

So I have a NTSC game which plays better on a PAL machine than on chipped one meant to and which does play (other) NTSC games correctly.

I'd like to know or try to understand why this occurs. It seems likely it is something to do with the chip as when I turn it off completely and return the machine to PAL status it runs correctly on that too. So is this a known problem with the Xec 2.6 or just an unfortunate unique incompatibility issue with this game?

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Sorry to ressurect this thread but I've been doing some experimenting with this game and I was wrong about it working OK ie. without the audio problem with the chip switched off. It actually doesn't, in either PAL or NTSC mode.

That surely means it is not a chip or even a bios problem as was suggested elsewhere when I described this strange phenomenon. With the chip off it should be using the original retail bios shouldn't it?

I thought it might be an unreported v.1.6 Xalibur video encoder issue but I've tried the game on a two other v.1.6s in both PAL and NTSC mode and it plays perfectly.

So what's left? The chipped Xbox is my main games playing machine, no other games NTSC or PAL have any detectable audio problem. The game itself produces nothing similar on any other machine retail or softmodded.

Could it be the DVD drive? It's the only Xbox I have with an Hitachi drive. What on earth could it be doing to cause the fault with this one game that my other Samsung, Thomson and Philips fitted Xboxes don't?