Tis Working fine with the old Surround Mixer, also just noticed winamp 3 is using full 5.1 :o

Reasons I hate Creative A few years ago I was a Creative Nut. Everything I bought was creative, and creative only, becouse of their excellent support that blasted all competition into oblivion. Then it changed. The first thing that happened was that the swedish supportdesk was shut down. Then their graphiccard support got shut down. So there I switched to using other companies graphiccards instead. Fine. Then came Audigy. Lets start: Trashing XP / Commercial Drivers 1. The initial rumours was that the drivers trashed Windows XP. Theese are true. And it is more bad than this. Read on. 2. A updated driver package may NOT be downloaded from the net. The core drivers MUST be installed from the CD that came with the original package. A new CD must be BOUGHT. 3. The installation of the Audigy is a critial process. Done incorrectly, it renders Windows XP unuseable and forces an re- install. Its reccomended to reboot after the xp installation, installing the drivers from the CD and rebooting again (not doing ANYTHING else), then installing the driver updates and rebooting again (not doing ANYTHING else). If XP still lives, then its safe. The Spam "Ho Ho" everywhere. 1. It all starts with a splash screen for EAX. This splash screen are incompatible with XP, so all you get is a halt, and a background sound. The animation cannot be seen. This can be shut down by opening "Creative EAX", clicking the smaller blue button, and unselect "Load at startup". 2. Then we have the taskbar. Even this is seriously hidden. Instead of disabling it through the taskbar, you must RIGHTclick on the "A" in the systemtray, deselect option "show on startup" & "Enable on startup", and then quit the application. 3. Then we have the frigid Remote Control that has the inhabit of showing up in the middle of games. Why we need an virtual remote control on our desktop that works exactly like the one that came with Audigy Platinum I dont know. To remove it, rightclick on "Remote Center" (looks like a old video camera, black/red in the systemtray). Go to "Advanced" and deselect " Enable the virtual desktop remote control". The "Support" That is no more. 1. The support takes 1-2 months to reply. If they do, they often reccomend to BUY the new Driver CD. 2. Some software (most importantly the "Remote Center" used for the remote) is only available through buying the CD. 3. The latest update is divided in five packages, each asking me to reboot after installation. The useless software Worthless hardware becouse of software 1. Most of the hardware coming with the "gold-embedded" platinum package, can only be used with Creatives own software. Updated software must be bought. This is most important for the remote control. Beyond Creatives own player and Windows Media Player you cannot use the remote for anything. Forget WinAMP and custom Mediaplayers. Forget controlling other programs. 2. The complete driver package contains over 500mb of junk that isnt really needed. 3. The "Surround Mixer" has a constant habit of going back to stereo speakers, so have Windows XP. It isnt seldom that a week goes past with "strange sound", finally discovering that the settings are back to stereo instead of 5.1. Best Regards JemyM

I would consider myself among the advanced users. Thoose that mess with the system files and actually get something from it without making the system run less stable... But in this case, I must say that you are probably just lucky. Audigy and Raven Shield is the only applications that failed during my PC era... Best Regards JemyM