need some tips or guides

[Artis.P]

hi guys, i recently  bought asus xonar essence stx soundcard and i have some problems understanding how it works. i hope that youll help me. im confused because i can change the sample rate and bit bepth in xonar control panel and Windows control panel (Win 7) > sound > speakers > properties > advanced. for example in xonar control panel i set  24 bit 96khz but in windows the numbers are as the default - 16 bit 41 khz. i think that they need to be the same in soundcards control panel and windows. and thats why im confused because i cant understand with what settings my music is playing. and when i set in Windows control panel > sound > speakers > properties > advanced over 16 bit 48000 hz or over 24 bit 48000 hz  xonar control panels eq stops working.

i hope that you guys will tell me some tips or guides how can i set my sound card properly.

ps. onboard audio is disabled in bios

[h264]

turn both of them up as high as they will go, 24bit and 192kbps.  This will give you a silly amount of headroom for all your music, and as long as you have windows 7 it should handle the conversion properly.

[t0wer]

if you don't know what your music is, you don't need more than 16bit 44.1khz