what the heck is direct sound??

[Mlope]

I bought this sb live mp3 sound card; sounds great with music, but has totally waylaid the gameplay! Aside from the SB16 emulation problems, I have gotten several messages like "unable to start up direct sound" and "sound device does not have direct sound driver". I have reinstalled the card, and the drivers a couple of times and installed the updated drivers off the web site. I posted a message on the sb board, but no response. Do any of you have any ideas? I am at a loss.
Thanks, Mike

[daveleau]

Direct Sound is a component of DirectX. Reinstall or upgrade it and it should correct it.
Dave

[Mlope]

Thanks for your quick reply, Daveleau!
I went to Cnet.com and downloaded an exe file to install DirectX7.0A. I installed it but to no avail.
I instsalled Grim Fandango & ran the troubleshooting utility that comes with it. It tells me it cannot find gchand.dll, dxsetup.exe, dssetup.dll, etc. It tells me I have old versions of ddraw.dll, ddraw16.dll, ddraw.exe, etc. It tells me I should reinstall DirectX, which I just did. Is there something messed up in my computer? Is the old messed up Directx keeping me from installing a good version? What next?
Mike
P.S. Grim Fandango came with directx 6.0. When I tried to install that, I got a message instantly that said "Directx setup has comleted sucessfully" but I don't think so.
HELP!!!

[Dave_H]

Hope this helps.
DirectX: How to Reinstall DirectX and Replace All DirectX Files (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q191/5/98.ASP)
Dave

[techs]

it seems like the message is saying your sound card driver is having a problem with directx. go to creative website and see if they have a directsound certified or whql certified driver