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How to fix BZFlag sound in Debian Etch

The standard Alsa drivers for my sound hardware (Intel 845 motherboard) are very poor.
I did finally manage to get sound working properly by building bzflag without SDL:

(get a recent bzflag cvs)
./configure --without-SDL
make
sudo make install

You must remove the config.cfg file before the new non-sdl bzflag will work properly.
Confirm your version like so:

/usr/games$ ./bzflag -v
BZFlag client 2.0.8.20061016-MAINT-linux-gnu-SDL (protocol 0026) http://BZFlag.org/

This is the -SDL build.
Note that the installer does not put bzflag in this location. the /usr/games location is specific to Debian. Just copy your new build to this location and check again:

/usr/games$ bzflag -v
BZFlag client 2.0.8.20061105-MAINT-linux-gnu (protocol 0026) http://BZFlag.org/

The normal option tells bzflag to send sound request to SDL - which chooses the best option from available drivers. The --without-SDL avoids this ALSA issue and sound works properly.