Prospects of an OpenAL audio driver...

[Eric Pouech]

Nick Burns wrote:

>> Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:36:26 +0200
>>
>> Nick Burns wrote:
>>
>>> OpenAL 1.1 supports recording... (1.0 does not have recording so 
>>> that is a problem yes)
>>> -- My driver handles this atm -- it checks for recording 
>>> capabilities and supports accordingly
>>
>>
>> half or full duplex ?
>>
>
> Unknown... (sorry not an openal master ...yet...). I can ask the dev 
> working on OpenAL about these types of things.

it's not an openal point. it's whether you can open, in two steps (from 
the windows point of view) the device in playback mode, then in record 
mode (keeping the playback mode opened)

>>
>>
>>>
>>> The dsound mapping stuff I want to understand better (are there any 
>>> docs for this?)
>>> I am sure we can layer it on OpenAL (hopefully good)
>>
>>
>> I doubt it for direct HW mapping (HEL should be fine). Unfortunately, 
>> no doc.
>>
> - For recording (1.1 only) : start capturing -- poll (get data -- if 
> there) -- stop recording
>
> Hmm... Is there a way I can request some docs (or is the source code + 
> msdn the doc)?

basically, look on MSDN at the dsound interfaces, and the way it's done 
on OSS

>> The whole point here is that OpenAL doesn't bring much to the picture 
>> (apart perhaps from a portability perspective, but it's still overkill).
>
> I would not say overkill (well maybe for linux its overkill but....)

> Mac OSX only has JACK(does not work atm), ESD(...slow), and now 
> CoreAudio(crashs in winecfg -- does play games -- but has ... static) 
> drivers
> CoreAudio is the only one that can show any decent performance -- and 
> its not really very... Portable
>
> OpenAL can show good performance on Mac OSX and other platforms (so 
> others can test things and stuff -- even under windows)
>
> I am not saying that OpenAL should be the catch-all sound driver -- 
> but its nice to have an alternative (that I can play GTA3 with -- 
> although i suggest not playing with a trackpad)
>
> You can take a look at my driver (posted to this list -- and its in 
> the archive at 
> http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-June/048273.html) It 
> is heavily based on the esd driver (my starting point). Which was 
> heavily based off of arts/alsa...

my point is linking to a 3D effect library for low level audio 
portability *IS* overkill
as if someone suggests that for plotting a dot on a screen (and only 
that) you'd need opengl
A+