Windows 7 Audio
This one area is making me consider switching back to XP from Windows 7.
I had complete control of my surround sound in XP. Games sounded great (except for WoW’s awful switch to software mixing, but that was an exception). The stereo-to-5.1 upmixing on my X-Fi impressed the hell out of me when I bought the card. I had convenient control over the volume of each independent speaker.
Just finding the independent speaker levels in Windows 7 is a pain. Some of the options are still there, but under Windows 7 they don’t work as well. Upmixing is inconsistent to say the least, with some sounds muffled and suppressed beyond recognition.
Whether it’s a driver or an OS issue, I’m not sure, but the audio in Windows 7 seems a lot more subject to audio stutters in games and it just doesn’t sound as good to my ears at all. When I was dual-booting during the beta, there was a clear difference jumping from one OS to the other.
We had a guildie with similar problems getting Ventrilo to work while he had game sound on. I think this is a pretty big lurking problem for windows 7.