athlon xp 2000+ (1660Mhz). i know it's kinda boarderline now a days, but it's never been a problem before.

well, i've got everything running at 100% now without using frameskip options i get no stuttering, but i get that "tearing" effect, it's prolly just a glitch in the game because it's not being reported as an overflow or an underflow with -verbose output. so i'm happy again :P