In Windows Vista, Microsoft has decided to remove the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for DirectSound and DirectSound3D. The HAL is the software layer that in previous Windows Operating Systems enabled an audio accelerator such as the Sound Blaster X-Fi, to provide DirectSound3D applications with hardware accelerated audio. This enabled soundcards to perform tasks such as sample-rate conversion, mixing, 3D spatialization using HRTFs, filtering, and effects processing. Without the HAL, DirectSound on Windows Vista will be rendered in software with no advanced functionality such as EAX.
The good news is that the Creative ALchemy Project allows you to run your favorite DirectSound3D games on Windows Vista as the developers intended - with full hardware accelerated 3D Audio and EAX support! This is done by translating DirectSound calls into OpenAL. In order for this to happen, a couple of files need to be installed into each game directory. This is handled automatically by the ALchemy installer - but can also be performed manually by advanced users.
Latest changes:
- Added re-sizing horizontal scroll bars to game list boxes (so you can see the whole name!)
- Added new ini file variable 'GamePath' that lets you specify any path to a game folder (useful when you can't find a registry key)
- Added ability to multi-select games using the Shift key
- New Games
- Bug Fixes
- Removed re-sizing border from ALchemy application
- Fixed dsound.dll object reference counting issue (fixes Oblivion crash bug)
- Fixed dsound.dll incorrectly applying EAX properties to duplicated buffers
- Fixed dsound.dll duplicate sound buffer problem (fixes Far Cry, MDK2, Serious Sam 2 and many others)
