Hello GOG community! I would like to share a recent discovery that I made while playing Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition.

I noticed that my sound options did not allow for EAX environmental audio from Creative Soundblaster Cards, and I wanted to see if I needed to install an updated driver. Then I learned that Microsoft cut all hardware-based soundcard support from Windows Vista to the present--Windows 8. This means that your CPU has to process all of the music and sounds from your game in software, which is a huge burden.

If you go into your Creative folder on your PC, you will find a program called Alchemy. Alchemy allows you to restore full capability of your Soundblaster card to process music and sounds in hardware. You can restore EAX features either in your registry, from the game execution command (i.e. C:\ Gog Games\NeverwinterNightsDE\nwnights.exe) or from your subfolders (i.e. sound, music, taunts, etc). I chose to install Alchemy to both my root Neverwinter Nights directory and my sound and music subfolders. In addition to getting full EAX audio restored to the game, my frame-rate DOUBLED! Why? Because my Soundblaster Fatal1ty is now processing all sounds in hardware, freeing my CPU! Now my CPU does what it was meant to do--transform and lIghting--while my Nvidia video card handles the shaders and my Soundblaster handles the sound and music. I set all of my video options to MAX and the frame-rate never drops, even with particle-based magic effects filling the screen!

Many games that support Soundblaster can be reactivated with Alchemy within Windows Vista, 7, and 8, and the Creative Support website has a list of those games. Want to improve your good old game performance and you have a Soundblaster Card? Start using Alchemy today!

Microsoft does have their reasons. Hardware drivers are privileged code and 3rd-party drivers are the #1 source of kernel crashes (Blue Screen of Death) these days. As for why you don't have them by default, I think using the heavily tested, Microsoft-supplied drivers is required for Windows Logo certification.

Of course, there are upsides and downsides to both options. The move from hardware mixing to software mixing is sort of like the move from MIDI music to audio files in games. In the end, they decided it was an acceptable change since doing it in hardware is much faster but doing it in software is more versatile, lets them give more consistent results from PC to PC, and reduces the number of ways in which a bug could happen on your PC but not their testing systems.