Best audio creation mode settings for monitoring?

I currently have the PCI-E X-Fi Titanium Fatality Professional and a new set of Klipsch ProMedia 2. speakers. I am a novice in music production and am looking to give myself the best driver settings in audio creation mode for the most accurate recording and monitoring possible. I realize that studio monitors are recommended for this sort of thing, but I am just getting my feet wet at this point and will be the only one listening to my mixes, so whether or not they sound good on other speakers is not that important right now.
What I am most concerned with is volume, I have read that higher volume levels in the control panel can cause distortion, but that lower volume levels cause you to lose some of the highs and lows. Is any of this true? Or does the volume make no difference? I have tried several settings, usually either leaving it at the default preset which sets the volume to 67%, or the RMAA 96 KHz preset which has it maxed at 00%. Honestly I really can't tell much of a difference, but if one setting is in fact better than another, I would like to hear it.
For right now I have been using the RMAA 96 KHz preset and turning on EAX as I do play some games from time to time. Which brings up another question, does EAX have any effect on music playback? Anyway I have messed with the EQs some, but I really want as flat a response as possible so I always have it either at Flat or disabled entirely. Klipsch recommends having the Wave volume at 70%, how can I access this from the Audio Creation mode?
Sorry, lots of questions here, hopefully someone can take a moment to help out a noob, thanks in advance.
Oh right, my specs (probably not important but whatever):
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
PCI Express X-Fi Titanium Fatalty Pro
Klipsch ProMedia 2.
Intel Q6600
2 x 2GB Corsair Dominator PC2-8500
Asus P5B-Deluxe Wi/Fi
Nvidia 275GTX Superclocked
Corsair 620W

Well gaming is an extremely low priority for me, I realize the game mode is best for gaming purposes but I am really interested in mixing/recording music with a MIDI controller in Ableton and finding settings that give me the most accurate monitoring, don't really care how games sound to be honest.

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That's what I've been doing.
And I'm also a Wolsky fanboy - I purchased his +Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop+ shortly after I started learning FCE, and that book has been very helpful. My main issue right now is coordinating the settings in my HV30 with the FCE settings.
Thanks for your comments and suggestions.
-Gordon

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