The Synth: Latency & Use by Other Programs

First post!

I haven't downloaded Musescore yet -- I'm checking here to see if it's what I need.

I have a Creative X-Fi card with hardware sound font synth, and an Athlon II X4 processor.

I play MIDI in real time from a MIDI keyboard, and have begun to use Cakewalk Music Creator, which can record the MIDI performance in MIDI.

I'd like to get free of my Creative sound card's synth; I don't know if they'll make drivers for the card for future Windows, and the new Creative card's do not have a sound font synth at all!

So, I have to be looking at software synths. They have to be fast enough (low latency) to play in real time without feeling a delay.

Cakewalk Music Creator's synth unfortunately is too slow.

So, that brings me to three questions:

#1.
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Is the synth fast enough to use to play tunes in real time using a MIDI keyboard, or is there noticeable latency? (I'm using an Athlon II X4.)

#2.
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Can recording programs such as Cakewalk's Music Creator see and use the synth?

#3.
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Do you know of other sound font synths that could fill the bill?

Thanks!