Because hardware acceleration for DirectSound and DirectSound3D was dropped in Windows Vista, OpenAL will likely become more important for game developers who wish to use EAX in their games.

DirectSound is a software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system.

DirectSound provides sample rate conversion and sound mixing ( volume and pan ) for an unlimited number of audio sources, however the practical limits are the number of hardware audio sources and the performance of software mixers.

Windows 98 Second Edition improved WDM audio support by adding DirectSound hardware buffering, DirectSound3D hardware abstraction, KMixer sample-rate conversion ( SRC ) for capture streams, multichannel audio support and introduction of DirectMusic.

Beginning with Windows XP, hardware acceleration was also added for DirectSound capture effects processing such as Acoustic Echo Cancellation for USB microphones, noise suppression and array microphone support.

DirectSound allows for the capture and playback of digital sound samples, whereas DirectMusic works with message-based musical data.

Whereas Microsoft ’ s DirectSound is commonly used as an intermediary signal path for non-professional users, ASIO allows musicians and sound engineers to access external hardware directly.

It is designed to run on Windows and uses OpenGL for rendering and DirectSound for 3D sound effects.

WinQuake instead accessed hardware via Win32-based APIs such as DirectSound, DirectInput, and DirectDraw that were supported on Windows 95, Windows NT 4. 0 and later releases.

Also known as Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED MB, it is similar to Audigy 2 SE, but the software supports EAX 3. 0, which supports 64-channel software wavetable with DirectSound acceleration, but without hardware accelerated wavetable synthesis.

Besides providing the essential service of passing audio data to the sound card, DirectSound provides other essential capabilities such as recording and mixing sound, adding effects to sound ( e. g., reverb, echo, or flange ), using hardware accelerated buffers, and positioning sounds in 3D space.

On supported sound cards, DirectSound would try to use " hardware accelerated " buffers, i. e. the ones which either can be placed in local sound card memory, or can be accessed by the sound card from the system memory.

If hardware acceleration is not available, DirectSound would create audio buffers in the system memory and use purely software mixing.

In Windows 95, 98 and Me, the DirectSound mixer component and the sound card drivers were both implemented as a kernel-mode VxD driver ( Dsound. vxd ), allowing direct access to the primary buffer used by the audio hardware and thus, providing the lowest possible latency between the user-mode API and the underlying hardware, but in some cases causing instability and blue screen errors.

If the audio hardware supports hardware mixing ( also known as hardware buffering or DirectSound hardware acceleration ), DirectSound buffers directly to the rendering device.

If DirectSound streams use hardware mixing, KMixer and its latency delay are bypassed.

The emulator does not have hardware abstraction, so there is no hardware DirectSound acceleration, meaning hardware and software relying on DirectSound acceleration may have degraded performance.

DirectSound provides a low-latency interface to the sound card driver and can handle the mixing and recording of multiple audio streams.

DirectSound is a user mode API that provides an interface between applications and the sound card driver, enabling applications to produce sounds and play back music.

DirectSound was considered revolutionary when it was introduced in 1995, as it featured multiple simultaneous audio streams and allowed several applications to access the sound card simultaneously.

EAX is an extension to DirectSound and DirectSound3D which provides sound effects processing to the hardware-accelerated buffers.

Architecturally, DirectMusic is a high-level set of objects, built on top of DirectSound, that allow you to play sound and music without needing to get quite as low-level as DirectSound.

It also makes full use of the DirectSound API to create realistic 3D sound effects.

Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth.

Apart from Windows Media Player, most of the WMA compression formats can be played using ALLPlayer, VLC media player, Media Player Classic, MPlayer, RealPlayer, Winamp, Zune Software ( with certain limitations — DSP plugin support and DirectSound output is disabled using the default WMA plugin ), and many other software media players.

* The waveOut, DirectSound, and DirectShow APIs support non-PCM formats such as AC-3 or WMA over S / PDIF.

The demo version excludes rendering to. WAV, ASIO support in Windows ( DirectSound only ) and a few other features.

DirectSound also provides a means to capture sounds from a microphone or other input and controlling capture effects during audio capture.

After many years of development, today DirectSound is a mature API, and supplies many other useful capabilities, such as the ability to play multichannel sounds at high resolution.

While DirectSound was designed to be used by games, today it is used to play audio in a large number of audio applications.

The DirectSound architecture features a concept of the " ring buffer " which would be continuously played in a cycle.

As she was rather tired this evening, her simple `` Thank you for the use of your bath '' -- when she sat down opposite him -- spoken in a low voice, came across with coolnesses of intelligence and control.

Others are confined to vast reservations, and not only does the Australian government justifiably not wish them to be viewed as exhibits in a zoo, but on their reservations they are extremely fugitive, shunning camps, coming together only for corroborees at which their strange culture comes to its highest pitch -- which is very low indeed.

The carved statues of the frieze against the low wall are for the most part headless, but their exquisitely graceful nude and draped torsos and the kneeling Atlantes are well preserved in their perfect proportion.

Master Gorton, having foully abused high and low at Aquidneck is now bewitching and bemaddening poor Providence, both with his unclean and foul censures of all the ministers of this country ( for which myself have in Christ's name withstood him ), and also denying all visible and external ordinances in depth of Familism: almost all suck in his poison, as at first they did at Aquidneck.

But during the second half of the century its fortunes reached a low point and when in 1897 Cyrus H. K. Curtis purchased it -- `` paper, type, and all '' -- for $1,000 it was a 16-page weekly filled with unsigned fiction and initialed miscellany, and with only some 2,000 subscribers.

If a branch extended out too far, each man held it back for the next, and if they met a low overhang, each warned the other.

The women, keeping their voices low as they worked around the house or sat in the living room, sounded like chickens shut up in a coop for the night.

in interstellar gas, concentrations as low as Af molecules per Af may be sufficient, as compared to the Af hydrogen atom's Af required for detection of the 21-cm line.

The Peace Corps can either begin in very low gear, with only preparatory work undertaken between now and when Congress finally appropriates special funds for it -- or it can be launched now and in earnest by executive action, with sufficient funds and made available from existing Mutual Security appropriations to permit a number of substantial projects to start this summer.

The major gets the assured gallonage for the life of the lease and the distributor apparently can do well because delivery cost is low.

The use of high voltages and low currents by proper design to reduce electron heat transfer to the anode for a given power output.

However, Af adsorbs water from the atmosphere and this may account for the low chromium analysis and high total weight loss.

Liter quantities of Mallinckrodt, low sulfur, reagent grade carbon tetrachloride were saturated with Af and Af and illuminated for about 50 hours with a 1000 watt tungsten lamp at a distance of a few inches.

He refused to change his approach, and instead he attacked high and low -- the officials for their not backing him, and subordinates for their laxness, stupidity, and stubbornness.

But the practice is likely to be misleading, since it may seem to support a conclusion that, as long as the revenues from any class of service cover the imputed operating expenses plus some return on capital investment, however low, the rates of charge for this service are compensatory.

A most useful tool for wetting the surface without running down was made from a greenhouse `` mist spray '' nozzle welded to a hose connection, to be used at low water pressure.

For radiosterilization, to destroy all organisms for long-term preservation -- about 4.5 Mrad for nonacid foods of low salt content.

A prime objective of the Army Quartermaster Corps program is to find the reasons for beef's low palatability and means of overcoming it, since it is a major and desirable dietary item.

Acceptance of radiopasteurization is likely to be delayed, however, for two reasons: ( 1 ) the storage life of fresh chicken under refrigeration is becoming a minimal problem because of constantly improved sanitation and distributing practices, and ( 2 ) treatment by antibiotics, a measure already approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration, serves to extend the storage life of chicken at a low cost of about 0.5 cents per pound.

If the rake angle **yc of the knife is high enough and the friction angle **yt between the front of the knife and the back of the chip is low enough to give a positive value for Af, the resultant vector R will lie above the plane of the substrate.

The low cost and ease of fabrication of the dies for three-dimensional foam cutting plus the wide variety of shapes, dimensions, and contours that can be tailor-made to customer requirements has made the technique useful for producing case liners, materials handling containers, packaging and cushioning devices, and such novelties as soap dishes, toys, head rests, arch supports, and gas pedal covers.

There is always an open market for this sort of delicacy, in spite of low calorie diets, cottage cheese and hands-off-all-sweets to the contrary.