HTHD 7.1 Driver Suite
The Included driver suite is the stock driver software for the X-Fi audio processor.

The X-Fi driver is based on the Active Modal Architecture.  Simply, you change modes based on the audio task you are performing.  Switching modes will put the audio processing power where it is required and enable and disable features accordingly.

Driver software installed on first attempt in both XP and Vista and updating was performed as the last step.  Aside from the bundled drivers the bundled software is very light and offers an auto mode changer, Soundfont bank Manger, Wave Studio 7 and Creative Media Source 5.

Entertainment Mode
The first Modal drive panel is Entertainment mode meant to be used for Music or movies.
We have sub panels for: Speaker settings, EAX effects (Reverb), CMSS3D upmix and headphone virtualization, SVM-Smart Volume Management, Graphics equalizer, Mixer, Dolby Digital Live encoder and settings for digital output through S/PDIF.

A new panel has been added for the HDMI options available on these cards.

There are also controls for Master volume and timbre controls (Bass and Treble)

Note: The DTS-Connect options are available in Vista and above.

Gaming Mode
The second modal drive panel assigns the DSP resources for gaming tasks. Again we have sub panels For CMSS-3D upmix and headphone virtualization, X-fi Crystallizer, Equalizer (shown), Signal Mixer, Speaker setup panel and Bass configuration panel.

There are also new settings for HDMI output of your gaming audio that can be found with the other digital output settings.

Audio Creation Mode
The last driver panel is meant for audio creation and production tasks. We have I/O signal faders for all the inputs, Multi Channel Wave input, 3D-Midi, ASIO faders and the newly added HDMI-in Fader. We have balance settings for all faders, signal level monitors and effects loops.

Without getting too in depth on the control of this panel, it is set up exactly like an external audio mixer would be and hopefully if you're creating audio this type of setup for routing signals and adding effects loops is familiar.  If you're new to this type of audio signal mixer a bit of experimenting and reading can help familiarize you with all the options and controls. Note: I am only showing a small selection of the signal faders, as this mixer can become significantly larger.

 Notes on Mode Changer: While some like the modal drivers, some do not and find it a pain to change them all the time. There are applications both released by Creative and another party that allow you to configure the drivers to change automatically based on whatever application you load.  The Mode Changer application is included on the driver CD and will allow you to assigns preset for different tasks.  You can set the application to load game mode when you click on your game icons for instance.