Sound settings?

I have a 5.1 speaker setup on my computer and am using a Dynex DX-SC51 sound card. I am aware that most media (i.e. games, streaming video, streaming audio) does not support 5.1 playback. So when I play many of my games I get nothing but stereo sound. Is there any way for me to have sound come out of all speakers, even if it is not surround? If that can be done, is there any way to have some sort of "automatic detection" that would change the configuration back to surround if the media supports it?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think there was any software that could do this sort of stuff. I always thought it was one of those features built into the receiver of your sound system, which you can toggle on and off. So either your receiver has it or it doesn't.