BlueA10

Hello Prensa. Thanks for your reply. I've already got the multi core fix on both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and while it does help with non-audio-related crashes in both games, it makes no difference when using ALchemy. I have, however, discovered something else. The Xonar cards sort-of do have a Game Mode in the form of GX in the Asus Panel (or Xear3D in the C-Media Panel), and while I had tried that as mentioned in my original post, it had failed to do anything. Well, turns out when I installed my Unified Xonar Drivers, I installed them with GX/Xear3D disabled. So, after a quick reinstall I removed the game from ALchemy's list and tried it with just GX on. It pretty much just worked. The audio had much better positioning compared to without GX, but not quite as good as when using ALchemy. In the short time that I tested it, the game would not freeze up in the areas it would've with ALchemy on. So, I do have something to fall back on if ALchemy never works out, but if possible I'd still prefer to get ALchemy working since it's much more convenient when it works and sounds a decent amount better. On that front, I'm no closer to a solution. That said, your post gave me the idea of checking my drivers, so thanks to you I no longer have to deal with the normal, horrible mixing.

I've recently been playing around with OpenAL Soft and Creative ALchemy, and found out New Vegas uses DirectSound for it's audio. So, I added it to the list in ALchemy and tried it out. Audio positioning is much better, and in the dsound.log it shows that ALchemy is working, but the game freezes constantly, and if restricted to only run on one core, it will max out that core 100%. Every time Doc Mitchell helps me up off the table in the intro, it freezes at the exact same point. I disabled ALchemy and sure enough the game runs fine, but the audio is horrible in comparison. I eventually got out of the Doc's house and saved the game in front of the saloon, ready to try ALchemy again. Still nope. This time it would run indefinitely until I started making noise, like shooting the gun or talking to someone. I've been toying around with all sorts of settings I could think of ever since, and endlessly searching Google for solutions, none of which worked. I've tried different ALchemy versions, tried OALSoft and regular Creative OAL, I tried my Asus card's Xear 3D (also known as GX Mode or DS3D GX), both seperate from and in combination with ALchemy, and it had no effect either way. I don't have FFDShow installed, or any codecs running. I tried editing the ini file audio cache size, turned the cache off completely, enabled/disabled "EnviroEffectsonPC", even imported some settings from Oblivion's ini regarding DirectSound and Hardware/Software 3D Audio. The only thing that's made a difference is setting MultiThreadAudio to 1. With that on, at any point where the game would freeze, the sound simply cuts out, and CPU usage skyrockets on one core or alternates 100%'ing different cores, but the game itself still works. I can walk around and shoot things, on the save in front of the saloon. If I try the intro with MultiThreadAudio on, then I get stuck in an animation loop of getting up off the table. I've heard setting a Creative sound card to Game Mode would fix issues with ALchemy, but I only have a Xonar, and it's been working fine with every other game I've used ALchemy on so far. If there's no way to fix this, then I can always just play the game without ALchemy, living with the terrible audio, or maybe even dual-boot Windows XP. Both of those options though are very undesirable. So, I've run out of ideas and Google-fu. Does anyone on here have an idea? Aside from getting ALchemy to work, is there another way of fixing the game's audio other than ALchemy, Xear3D/XonarGX, IndirectSound or 3DSoundBack?