Software annoyances

"While we neither attempted or felt the need to use all the software bundled with the card till the early morning hours of several days we did still manage to find some frustrating news to convey to you, the reader. One annoying thing about using PlayCenter 3 in player mode (small view) is that the overall graphical design is too condensed. There is overly much on the screen in too small of a space. Some buttons are so small you literally have to move your head closer to the screen. To save your eyesight, try using it in maximized Jukebox mode instead....

Secondly the Remote Control Center sometimes may be obstructive. Try closing a window clicking the X icon and *hokus pokus* the desktop remote control window may venture in your path. There is an option to disable this occurring on the popup window itself, though sadly it doesn't get saved in the configuration file, so the problem is not eliminated. However we were persistent in our search to remedy the inconvenience it has been causing. To get rid of what Creative calls the Virtual desktop remote control you will need to access the RemoteCenter Manager then click on the advanced tab, further disable the option associated with the desktop remote control and enjoy life from their onwards.

Last but not least Audigy features such as Audio Clean-Up, DREAM or Time Scaling may only be used in PlayCenter3. What Creative is implying is regardless whether you like our PlayCenter3 program use it or miss out. Surely this must be some mistake? Perhaps if one is lucky Creative will release driver updates given time that permit using the Audigy to its full with other 3rd party audio playback software. Other places needing the attention of Creative's support team include the proper functioning of the remote control in other applications and for the Creative taskbar to not appear when clearly set not to. Given the three five issues above all else seems to be within respectable user friendliness.

PlayCenter3 in standard view mode seems flawed in layout, some buttons are too small and overall appearance seems cluttered.

It is best to disable the Virtual desktop remote control disallowing it to obstruct your desktop when least expected. (Click image to view larger version).

One aspect worth mentioning was that it was designed to decode Dolby Digital but not to encode it. It is hard to state at this point in time whether the Audigy chipset has the potential to perform this in hardware, and nor is it worthy to make any assumptions that Creative will release a newer driver what enable it. It remains an interesting feature Creative should/still could implement into the Audigy range. While Dolby Digital decoding is becoming almost mainstream, hardware assisted encoding it is still only obtainable on much more expensive cards.

Enable the Dolby Digital option to make use of it in DVD movies.

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