On my machine (Windows XP Home, 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, Creative Audigy 2, NEC ND1100A DVD+RW drive), DirectX 8.1 works OK with sound acceleration turned off (using dxdiag). DirectX 9.0 stutters terribly in this game, even with sound acceleration turned off. I had to revert to DirectX 8.1.

You need to disable DirectX sound acceleration. Run the DirectX diagnostic tool (Start->Run then type \"dxdiag\", and on the Sound tab set the \"hardware sound acceleration level\" to \"no acceleration\".) Remember to re-enable it after playing the game.

Whenever I try to install the game, nothing comes up on my screen. I have tried going into the "Run" option and opening the setup from there, but that did not work either.