Consequences of Basic Setting (Sound)

[Skakruk]

Both Oblivion and Hitman: Blood Money have sound issues unless I set 'Hardware acceleration' to 'Basic' in the 'Advanced Audio Properties' settings options.

What exactly are the consequences of setting the slider to basic? What will I lose?

I have a decent sound card, the Auzentech Xplosion 7.1, so I should be able to use full hardware acceleration, but in Oblivion I get strange effects with footsteps and spell casting etc. (sound flicks rapidly from left to right if I'm strafing - does not happen when I go straight foward, or stand in one place). I've tried disabling hardware acceleration and enabling software acceleration in the Oblivion ini, but it made no difference. In Hitman, I get all sorts of issues including sudden loud bursts of sound from far away sources.