Soundblaster EAX and 5.1 support available for X-Fi and Audigy cards

>I don't know how widespread the knowledge about this is (I just found out
>by accident) but if you have a soundblaster X-Fi or Audigy card, you can
>now re-enable EAX and full 3d (5.1 and 7.1) support via a new product
>called "Creative Alchemy".
>
> For X-Fi owners its a free download, for Audigy owners it costs $10
>
> I was replaying F.E.A.R. Extraction Point and noticed the EAX audio
> options were greyed out and I was only getting stereo sound. After
> installing Alchemy I am getting EAX effects and 3d sound but its not
> perfect. The music volume seems to be at maximum no matter what the
> setting is in the menu and I occasionally cannot hear the conversations
> from my teammates. But wow, what a difference! I had forgotton how
> immersive hearing sounds behind me was.
>
> To be fair, FEARXP is not one of the officially supported games for
> Alchemy and I have not tried any on their list yet.
>
> If you have the right hardware you might consider Alchemy. Since they have
> released it as a separate product, I doubt it will ever be built-in to the
> Vista drivers.
>
> Mark
>