Advice with renaming DLL is pointless for modern Creative cards. Some post X-Fi cards support both hardware and software OpenAL (like Z, ZxR), but AE-5, G-6, etc. don't. It'll result in error "Native Device not default" in logs instead. Also, it's necessary to switch installed DLLs in most cases (can be checked in OpenAL tools).
Topic on Glossary talk:Sound card
Posting links forcing me to solve the infinite amount of CAPTCHas and I can't post them directly...
DLL problem
About new cards
Mod-edit: fixed links
About software alchemy from dsoal's author post: i.imgur.com/qGbEFtc.png
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I was already reporting that years ago. Check the latest edit in "Creative's BS".
It's not sens_oal to be bugged/wrong (or well, at least not inherently for this reason) but ALchemy that is biased to just care about "Audigy" and "X-fi" device strings. And I'm pretty sure to remember people on vogons had worked that around.
I'd be glad if you or anybody else with a good ear could report back about differences in this situation.