Will Sound Blaster X-Fi cards still require ALchemy to work properly with New Vegas as it did with Fallout 3? With FO3, I have a choice of either having the radio voice filter not working and having some sound hiccups with ALchemy active, or not having sounds play through as many speakers as they should (like convos with NPCs only coming out the center speaker) with ALchemy inactive.

Has the sound system been revamped to eliminate the need for ALchemy?

I'd like to know this as well. A lot of new games are going to OpenAL or XAudio 2 (the API the 360 uses) and dumping EAX since Creative's EAX requires DirectSound, which has been removed from Vista/7. I believe NV will have to support OpenAL or XAudio 2 to remove the need for Alchemy. I think XAudio 2 is only available in DirectX 10.1 and up and Fallout 3 was a DX9 game, so OpenAL support might be the only recourse. If it's not supported we'll probably have to use Alchemy. If I were to guess I'd say, "get ready to use Alchemy."

I have an SB X-Fi Titanium. I don't have Alchemy installed, and Fallout 3 works just fine. I have a 5.1 speaker setup and the sounds all come out of the correct speaker.

Do you hear dialog sound come out of only the front speaker? If you do, then no it's not correct.

The game sounds the same as it did on my old system running XP with an SB Audigy 2. When I'm in dialog with a character, their voice comes from the center speaker. When random NPC's around me are talking, their voices come out of the correct speaker relevant to my position. So when I'm talking to Lucus Simms in Megaton with the dialog options, his voice is coming from the center speaker. If two NPC's are having a random conversation behind me, their voices come from the rear speakers.

NPC dialog is supposed to come out of all three front speakers. That's what it does with ALchemy enabled and does not do when disabled.

Why do you think the dialog is supposed to come out of all 3 front speakers? If the character is standing right in front of you, the sound should come from the center speaker, not the left and right speakers too. It works exactly the same as it did when I was using Windows XP.

Because they're close to you. It's for the same reason why it's hard to photograph someone's face right up in front of you when using a narrow angle lens, but easier when using a wide-angle.

That's how it was on my XP before going to W7, and that's how it is when ALchemy is active.