It seems that
Creative Labs is now selling ALchemy Audigy Edition for $9.99 (USD). Alchemy is a wrapper that converts DirectSound3D streams into OpenAL under Windows Vista. This project is available freely for Sound Blaster X-Fi owners. For unknown reasons Creative Labs has decided to sell this wrapper to Audigy owners.
Quote:
In Windows Vista, Microsoft removed the Vendor Extension mechanism from Vista's DirectSound implementation. With previous Windows Operating Systems, the Vendor Extension enabled the Sound Blaster Audigy to provide accelerated audio for DirectSound3D games.
Without Creative ALchemy, most DirectSound games running in Vista will be reduced to stereo output without any EAX effects. Creative ALchemy (Audigy Edition) restores your Sound Blaster Audigy's ability to process EAX effects, 3D surround sound, sampling rate conversion and hardware audio mixing for DirectSound3D games in Windows Vista.
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After some investigation, we have discovered that you do not actually need to buy ALchemy Audigy Edition to restore functions under Windows Vista and the Audigy/Live! Series. You can just download ALchemy for Sound Blaster X-Fi (it’s available for free) and manually copy dsound.dll and dsound.ini to a
supported title. Then edit the dsound.ini file until it works. More information about this procedure is
available here, or you can
download the predefined version.
