How come I get Dolby Digital decoding, CMSS, and EAX effec

Question

Perhaps this is related to the fact that I use either headphones or 2. speakers. The info on the Vista beta driver says I'll get no dolby digital, CMSS, etc.
But, in PowerDVD I set to SP/DIF and the Creative decoder gives me the DVD audio fine! I turn on CMSS 2 and it expands things nicely for my headphones just like on XP.
Same with the Advanced EQ EAX settings and CMSS 2 with mp3 listening with headphones. The different settings all work, and have worked even before the Vista driver came out when I was using the XP driver.
Is it just the expansion to 5. speakers that doesn't work yet? Because the headphone listening effects seem to not only work, but music and DVD's actually sound better than on XP!
Further info: Vista RC Build 5728 32-bit, Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, Vista Beta Driver.
The driver install went perfectly except for some error messages on the first restart about driver access.
The major improvement for me regarding the Beta drivers over the XP ones is that Creative Soundfont Manager and Soundfont midi now works. I custom installed the Soundfont Manager, AudioHQ, and found that for some reason the DTS/Neo stuff gets installed along with System Info and Registration even when not selected. I left out everything else and did not install MediaSource Player.
Audio Console is able to control all the stuff in it. EAX Control in AudioHQ doesn't seem to work properly but Audio Console can switch between the preconfigured settings and the changes take effect fine.
Just no EQ. I tried installing it and it wouldn't run. That's how I found out the DTS stuff is installed. I noticed it when uninstalling the EQ.
The Advanced EQ in Audio Console works fine though.
Apparently the Vista Audio improvements help out the sound quality. At least for mp3 listening and DVD's, things are sounding quite a bit better than they do on 9x or XP.
Now if we could get a new driver/software package from Creative. Heck, they did it for Li've/Audigy shortly after XP came out (redesigning the whole package). Maybe they'll actually make us happy and give us a similar easy to install package that all works together.
I'm sure this won't happen until after Vista final comes out, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have this in mind.
It's just frustrating during the beta period. Especially for those that haven't gotten good (or, any) results.
It's weird. I know I've been lucky but nearly anything I've tried since starting to test Vista with my Audigy 2 ZS has mostly worked.

Answer 1

From what I've seen, the most of the problems with the cards are with the 64-bit drivers. My Audigy 4 also works with the XP drivers of the CD and Vista B2 drivers as much as they should. Many people don't realize that it is a beta driver, on a new OS (which is now in final development) so some things will and will not work. Also many people don't read readmes and such and still complain on things that where stated. Such as the Vista B2 drivers for the Audigy series
Known issues:
* Waking your computer from sleep or hibernate mode stops audio output. To resolve this, restart your computer.
* In this download, the Effects Amount slider in EAX is disabled.
* To configure your speakers, use Audio Console only. Configuring your speakers in "Audio Devices and Sound Themes" in Control Panel may result in loss of audio during playback in Windows Media? Player. To resolve this issue, close and reopen Windows Media Player again.
* This download does not support
o Dolby? Digital or DTS? decoding
o CMSS?-3D
o recording
o 6. speaker systems
All thats stated is pretty much what people are complaining. Though its stated what won't work, they may work due to its a general driver and not a specific driver. So some may have somethings working on one card, and not on the other.