David, At this point, the SDL sound support is enabled.  I haven't been able to make any sounds and I don't know how it interacts with the system.  I'll have to look at this code.  Clearly, if a person has selected sound=no, then the sound card should not be tied up.  But, even with sound=yes or beep, the only time the sound card is needed is at the end of generating a fractal or for error messages. Jonathan

Just wondering. I had the newest SDL version running and went to start  my pro audio server (JACKD) to check something else. JACKD reported that  something was already using my sound card.

The only other program open was Thunderbird.

After I exited SDL XFractint, I could start JACKD without any problems.

Thanks.