Creative ALchemy Universal 1.00.08 By Daniel Kawakami 64 Bit
https://ssurll.com/2suOom
i know that i said i'd be going with a quick review, but this is really lengthy and i don't want to skip any of the details. if you're looking for a quick way to play thief: deadly shadows and the first three thief games (assuming you've got a creative card), then this is a perfectly good way to do it. it will work for all of those games.
really, if you do not have any createive 3d cards and just looking for sound, then try creative alchemy. it's free, works very well and its support for software 3d cards is very good (realtek 3d is the exception). if you have no idea what you do, there is no need to add 3rd party drivers to games, there is no problem with sound drivers if you have proper alchemy sound sources installed. you can in fact use eax 4 with eax 1 software without any problems. play bf2 and other games with eax 4 enabled, eax 2 games with eax 1, and eax 0 games with eax 0. no need to add any drivers, just download the latest version of alchemy and you are ready to go. its based on sbs. sbs is still working fine for me even after 3 years.
here is the alchemy command to disable snd_fx_oss. this is a patch for creative's alchemy, which should work as a workaround for alchemy universal. all you have to do is to open the alchemy.ini file located in the %appdata%\creative\alc alchemy universal\default directory and modify the line '[soundfx]setdspidx1=0' to '[soundfx]setdspidx1=1'.
and finally, if it doesnt work, you have to roll back. go to the alchemy directory and delete the folder. then open up the alchemy.ini again and modify the line '[soundfx]setdspidx1=0' to '[soundfx]setdspidx1=1'. d8a7b2ff72
i really need to sit down and make a video comparison of this stuff, but the difference between the audigy and alchemy is very noticeable with thief 1 & 2--not only are the echoes a little bit stronger under alchemy, but sounds underneath, above or behind garret are muffled. even his footsteps.
but if you want to be able to use your x-fi in newer games, then i recommend that you use the latest version of alchemy. i think it supports x-fi (as i read it does). anyway, there's no reason to not use the latest version of alchemy.
there are some games that use a single.eax file, that won't work if you use latest alchemy. they are games that use the old directsound directly. so, if you want to use x-fi hardware in these games, you need to use latest alchemy. if you don't do this, then your x-fi will only work in older games.
anyway, i'm not sure that eax 5 is required by eax 2 (for example, you don't need eax 5 to use eax 2 in bf2). you can also use eax 4 with old games, if you're not interested in surround sound. you can use eax 2 with your x-fi if you want, if you're not interested in surround sound. so, in short, you should have no problems with your x-fi, with latest version of alchemy.
i can't tell you if this version of alchemy is compatible with windows 8 and on. it works fine on xp, but if you're having compatibility issues in windows 7, then i'm not sure if this is the version you need. anyway, i'm not sure if its compatible with windows 8 and higher. you might want to try it on older systems before you buy. if you do, then let us know what happens.