Hi Arjan,
I am using Dirac with AO. The problem is that Dirac needs to be started with the system starts and AO disables the mechanism that is responsible for that. Are you using the latest version of Dirac, the one which supports 192 kHz sample rate? I believe it was released in the beginning of October 2014. I ask because the previous version made use of the Windows Task Scheduler to start itself when the computer starts. The problem is that AO optimization disables the Task Scheduler, so Dirac is never started. With the new version of Dirac, they put a link to the exe in the user's Start folder instead of using Task Scheduler. If you upgrade to the latest version of Dirac I am fairly certain that will take care of the problem.
I need to hedge just a little bit because I am actually using a custom shell - it is a bat file which starts both Dirac and JRiver. I tried using AO to set JRiver as the shell but it turned out that left no way to start Dirac. It was AudioPhil's suggestion that I use a bat file for the shell. (Doing so requires manual editing of the registry, but otherwise is not difficult.) I mention this only to say that I can't be 100% certain from personal experience that AO optimization doesn't somehow disable auto start of things in the StartUp folder. If you upgrade to the latest version of Dirac, or are already using it, and still it is not running, then another way to get Dirac to start is with an entry in the registry. Here is a guide for how to do that: Manage the Programs Run at Windows Startup at Registry Guide for Windows.
Hope this helps!
