[LAD] (Off-topic) Audigy 4 and Surround

Hi! This might be a complete offtopic here, but there hardly is another place to ask, where there are serious audio-tech savvy people. :) So I have Creative Audigy 4 sound card on WinXP x64. It's been a pain to set-up a working 5.1 surround system. In fact I've never done it. Has anyone got it right? I had no luck with Linux' ALSA either. I currently run it with the bloody Creative's CMSS, which is pretty good for stereo music recordings and most movies. I knew my 5.1 wasn't right, but until I tried ambisonics I was quite oblivious to the fact. So the actual problem. There is no real surround. The back speakers actually put out the same thing as front, with, what appears to be, some phase offset. This is most likely CMSS doing, but If I disable CMSS I get ouput only of two front speakers. Regardless of CMSS setting anything that is recorded as in "directly behind" doesn't play at all. With Linux and ALSA, there is a bit different problem. ALSA appears to cap the maximum amplitude below capability of the sound card, so I get "clipping artefacts" at *much* lower volumes than WinXP. So neither ALSA driver, nor music players were satisfactory to me and I never went though pains to get surround on it. I had not tried my luck with OSS4 yet. If it was up to me I'd use stripped down OSS4, which would provide direct access to 6-channel output. On top of it I'd put JACK and then route what I want, where I want. This is no small task however, and I'm not even sure if it can be done at all. I ask of you to share any experiences and ideas you have with Audigy, on any of these platforms. Thanks in advance! -- John