I used to think EAX is what gave games the ability to do 5.1 but isn't it Directsound that does that these days?
OH forgot to mention about C-Media folks. It is by far best to get drivers from the C-Media website for your C-media cards chipset. Then you can pretty much safely ignore whoever made the card.
So even this POS becomes quality because of the chipset.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829130001