While running the game, check under the Options menu for the Sound/Effects settings. They may be turned off. Also be
sure that The CD-ROM drive is not running in "compatibility" mode, since it will only use short file names. If running in "compatibility" mode when the game was installed, only short file names were used for sounds and animations. The game is looking for the long file names and therefore will not be able to find the correctly named files.
To determine if your CD-ROM is running in compatibility mode:
RIGHT click on the "My Computer" icon. Choose "properties" This opens up the System properties window. 
Left(Normal) click on the "Performance" tab, under File System it should read "32-bit". If it reads that drive(s) are using MSDOS compatibility mode, there is a problem. Updating drivers is usually a common solution.

• First off make sure your hard drive is defragged, both the C: drive and the drive CIII is installed on.(if you have more than one drive.)
• Download the latest versions of your sound card, video & CD-ROM drivers, also have the latest version of Directx6.
• When you run CIII, make sure there are no other applications running on the computer. This includes any desktop utilities or virus scanners. On some machines windows seems to "hog" the extra memory which may be causing the garbled sound.
• In the CIII game, make sure under the OPTIONS menu that the sound effects are ON.
• Adjust the volume of all C3 sound components to about 70-80% and turn up your volume knob on your speakers (or the volume control in Windows95).
•  Switch to a lower resolution (640x480 or 800x600). This will also make the game run faster.

Make sure you have the latest video drivers and DirectX6 installed. 
Try running in the game with 640x480 settings.

Also turn off the mouse scheme by:
Clicking START->SETTINGS->CONTROL PANEL.
Double click the MOUSE icon.
Choose the "Pointers tab" and from the drop down menu under SCHEME choose NONE.
Note: Some animated cursors may cause problems. Try using a non-animated cursor(eg. the plain arrow) instead.

The following information is from Creative Labs. A tech support person recently shared the information in the CIII Heaven forum. 

PROBLEMS FOR AWE 64 GOLD WITH CIIII
CRACKLING AND POPPING NOISES.

Try the following and see if it helps:

To clean up the win95/98 driver files:

1. Get the file SBW9XUP.EXE from
FTP.CREAF.COM UB/CREATIVE/DRIVERS/SB16AWE.

2. Run the file in an empty directory to unzip it.

3. Go to start, settings, control panel, system, and device manager.

4. Go to the sound, video, and game controllers.

5. Remove any listings for the sound card.

6. Go to start, shut-down, and pick restart in ms-dos mode.

7. Go to the "c:\windows" directory.

8. Delete awe*.*.

9. Go to the "c:\windows\system" directory.

10. Delete sb*.*, wfm*.*, csp*.*, and cif*.*

11. Go to the "c:\windows\inf" directory.

12. Rename *.bin to *.cli

13. Reboot the computer and when it says "Starting Win95" hit the
F8 key.

14. Pick safe mode.

15. Once booted go to START, FIND, FILES OR FOLDERS and do a search for the following files and delete any that you
find:
(Do not delete any of the files you just downloaded)

WFM200.ACV
WFM201.ACV
WFM202.ACV
WFM203.ACV
SB16SND.DRV
SBFM.DRV
SB16.VXD
CSPMAN.DLL
CIFMAN.CRL
CIFMAN.DLL
AWEMAN.DLL
AWEMAN32.DLL
SBAWE32.DRV
SBAWE.VXD

16. Go back to the device manager and see if you can find any listings for the sound card in ANY of the expandable
sections. If you find any, remove them.

17. Reboot the computer.

18. When it asks for win95 cd or diskette, do not insert it and hit ok.

19. Then browse to the directory where you placed the SBW95UP.EXE and unzipped it.

20. Let it pull the drivers from there.

Once it pulls the drivers and finishes booting to windows, you
should have everything installed correctly.
 

Please include all previous correspondence when replying to this message!
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Jason Neal 
Creative Labs Technical Support
http://www.creativehelp.com