G4 Latency/delay Sound Input Problems, G4 latency/delay sound input problems Options

[sosyne]

I have a g3 that I make music with but Im getting a g4 with protools. My friend just bought a g4 and when we tried to record anything into it there would be a second delay. It was impossible for us to record anything live. He recently bought protools with the mbox which seems to have solved that problem. Im just wondering if I am going to have to buy the mbox (which is expensive) to record anything live? Could I also buy a cheaper sound card that could fix this problem? Also if im just sequencing beats is the single audio input on the back of the new g4's fine for just taking samples off of records and whatever. thanks, ian