Three problems. 

1) Until I get Kontakt 2 or a VST Host Program, I'm using Kontakt Silver's sounds to fill in the extra percussion and wind sounds.  I'm getting phasing between the Silver and VDL2 sounds.  Any suggestions?

2) Any good free VST Host Programs?

2) I'm also getting major skippage (almost a stutter) during the beginning of playback and everytime the page redraws.  I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Card and have already tried adjusting the latency from 2 ms to 500 ms.  Nothing changes in the fluidity of the playback.  Any other ways to combat the problem?

I'm currently using Sibelius 3.1.3, VDL2 (obviously), and I've got a Dell with a 2.8 GHZ Processor and 1.75 Gigs of RAM.  I've already installed the DFD Extension that Native Instruments sent me and it's working fine.

Vince

[quote author=Vincent Gumkowski link=topic=769.msg2983#msg2983 date=1123216987]
Three problems. 

1) Until I get Kontakt 2 or a VST Host Program, I'm using Kontakt Silver's sounds to fill in the extra percussion and wind sounds.  I'm getting phasing between the Silver and VDL2 sounds.  Any suggestions?[/quote]

Just like VDL2's Kontakt Player, Sibelius' ";Silver"; Kontakt Player has a latency setting as well. You should consider matching the latency of Sibelius' Silver player to that of the VDL2 player. In Sibelius, go to the Window menu and select ";Kontakt Player."; Click the ";Audio Setup"; button, and there you'll see a similar latency slider to the one you see in the VDL2 soundcard setup window. For starters, set these around 40ms. (Note: you can also set the Silver latency via the ";devices"; window, however it seems to be more reliable if you set it within the player itself).

[quote]
2) Any good free VST Host Programs?
[/quote]
Free...I'm not sure. I doubt it. But many programs allow you to download the full version as a demo which would work fine. It may not allow you to save your setups however, which would certainly justify cost in time saved. You may want to try some of the suggestions listed in this topic:
https://www.tapspace.com/forums/index.php?topic=672.0

[quote]
2) I'm also getting major skippage (almost a stutter) during the beginning of playback and everytime the page redraws.  I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Card and have already tried adjusting the latency from 2 ms to 500 ms.  Nothing changes in the fluidity of the playback.  Any other ways to combat the problem?

I'm currently using Sibelius 3.1.3, VDL2 (obviously), and I've got a Dell with a 2.8 GHZ Processor and 1.75 Gigs of RAM.  I've already installed the DFD Extension that Native Instruments sent me and it's working fine.

Vince
[/quote]
This is probably due to the fact that when your screen redraws, it's stealing resources away from your CPU. You may want to confirm this with the folks at Sibelius though. It may have something to do with video memory too...I'm not sure. In the meantime, you may just want to DE-select the option in Sibelius to ";follow score during playback"; to avoid all the redraws.

You may also try turning down the bit depth of your monitor so it's not using so many colors, or try optimizing your machine's performance using some of the ";tuning tips"; at: http://www.musicxp.net/.

Hope this helps!

Good advice on all fronts.  You may want to additionally turn off any paper texturing if it's not already, and I think there's a setting to adjust the on-screen rendering to either faster (more aliasing) or better-looking (more anti-aliasing).