ok, new twist…as a last ditch attempt to figure it out, i plugged the laptop into my two monitor setup (laptop on left, monitor on right, with the timeline and windows in the monitor on the right) and everything was fine. So obviously it’s something with my laptop display, although other projects still seem to play without the lag…i’m totally stumped, but at least i can get it to work…if anyone has any idea what is going on, please fill me in! Thanks.