What's going to happen to my X-Fi Platinum when I upgrade to Vista x64 and 4 gig of r

Question

Need info fast. Am researching for my new system overhaul and read all the problems with Daniel K, driver support, July drivers, etc. I need to know if these problems have been addressed before i put my Platinum onto my new setup. x48 asus board, 4 gig ocz, vista x64, Radeon 4870x2, z5500. I love my X-Fi, but I won't even bother putting it back in if problems still exist and/or I'm told 'new drivers are on the way'; not an option for a component I paid $300 for.

Answer 1

Creative had nothing to do with DirectSound3D / surround sound issues in Vista. This was all MS. Microsoft removed the hardware layer for DirectSound3D, which prevents apps/games using DirectSound3D from accessing hardware directly. The result is that audio using DirectSound3D is processed on the CPU and will be limited to stereo-only.
Games that don't rely on DirectSound3D will still function normally in Vista. This limitation is for all sound devices, not just Creative.
Creative created a workaround for this so Vista users can still play DirectSound3D games with surround sound. This is ALchemy. ALchemy adds a .dll to each DirectSound3D game you select that will translate DirectSound3D instructions into OpenAL instructions.
OpenAL is an alternati've to DirectSound3D that has been used in games since 2003 or so. OpenAL on Vista is still allowed direct access to hardware and so will use your sound hardware for processing and speaker positioning.
Without something like ALchemy DirectSound3D games on Vista will be limited to stereo output only.
There are also games that use software-only audio rendering like the Miles Sound System that will be unaffected on Vista also. Only games that use DirectSound3D are affected.
EAX is a set of extensions to either DirectSound3D or OpenAL. EAX over OpenAL works fine in Vista, but DirectSound3D games won't be able to enable EAX effects because of Vista's removal of the DirectSound3D hardware abstraction layer.
ALchemy will allow you to enable EAX for these games as well.
For the most part ALchemy works pretty well. On a handful of games you need to do some tweaking (there are four settings you can change, although only two usually require any modification.) And fewer games are coming out that use DirectSound3D anyway, since Vista doesn't fully support it. More modern games are using OpenAL or software-based audio rendering.