"What U Hear" sound quality

[Einhanderkiller]

Audio noob here.

Here's my problem: the audio quality when recording through "What U Hear" sucks. (I have a Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card.) I need to record the audio that is being played on my PC for recording game videos, but the only method of recording the audio that I know of is by using What U Hear.

Is there any other method?
Is there a way to improve the sound quality? (I read somewhere that it may be because of the compression technique used.)

Thanks.

Here's an example of the audio. As you can hear, there is a lot of popping and cracking, and the sound is a bit muted. It's even worse in other games such as Team Fortress 2.
http://www.wegame.com/watch/Crysis_Assault_Test/

EDIT: Just updated to the newest X-Fi driver (March 14, 2008). What U Hear quality has improved significantly. I'd still like to know of some other methods of recording audio, though.

 

[Uncle Jim]

can select wave instead of what you hear. you do not have speakers and mic connected while recording do you? This deteriorates sound quality.

 

[Deviationer]

maybe your What U Hear is set to loud and is clipping. Also I'd try turning off any EQ you have on, I have noticed when recording with fraps, any extra EQ (mainly any extra bass) can have strange effects during playback.

 

[JamesL]

It sounds like the crackling/pops are occuring at pretty even intervals.. If you can, try increasing the buffer size.

I've used a free microsoft-app before to do this before w/ no problem, but I forgot what it was called. I'm sure there are plenty of software that can decode audio streaming through your sound card.
Just google audio capture sound card.. this is the first result..