Sound elsewhere is fine, but the sound is very scratchy and staticky in Q3. Any config options you suggest changing?

The hardware is a 1.2 ghz MDD, running off a normal soundblaster live card

I just installed Q3 on my G4-500 1G RAM, SoundBlaster, and ATI 9000 and my sound is scratchy when the Narrator speaks in the game. Normal player sounds seem fine and graphics though not set to hi-res are smooth.

I've not dug too deep yet but I am having similar issues. Maybe the latest patch is causing this?

I had this with a Soundblaster Audigy. Seemed to work fine but I had those soundproblems and a lockups. All gone with swapping to another soundblaster... why ? I don't know, probably some revisions give you troubles.