[openal] Extensions and recommended way of installing OpenAL Soft

[Cyril Drouet]

Hi,

Thank you for getting back to me.

Regarding AL_EXT_FLOAT32 and EXT_MCFORMATS, I noticed them but I wanted 
to cover all the available possibilities. Right now, I do rename the 
soft dll and put in next to the application, but I would like to avoid 
doing this.

I didn't know I needed an OpenAL Soft device to be opened in order for 
AL_SOFT_buffer_samples to be available. I just tested and the extension 
is recognized correctly if I select a Soft device, and use the 
recommended way of installing OpenAL Soft. Thank you for the tip. 
Regarding the soft devices, my audio device is listed twice with the 
same name right now (hopefully, Soft will appear in the name in the next 
release). I'm guessing one is the soft device, and one is the hard 
device. Since I can only open a device through its name as far as I 
know, I can't really choose which one to open. If I pass null (to open 
the default device), it seems to open the hard device. If I explicitly 
pass the name, it seems to open the Soft device. So, if the name is the 
same, does it always open the soft device?

Thanks,
Cyril

On 9/2/2015 12:19 PM, Chris Robinson wrote:
> On 08/31/2015 10:18 AM, Cyril Drouet wrote:
> > I'm trying to use the "AL_SOFT_buffer_samples" extension so that I
> > can load surround data into buffers.
>
> Hi.
>
> FWIW, you don't necessarily need AL_SOFT_buffer_samples to load 
> surround sound data. That extension is mainly just an attempt to clean 
> up the buffer loading API to be clearer and more flexible, namely by 
> separating the sample type from the channel configuration, and 
> supplying more user-facing sample types. But as long as you only need 
> to worry about unsigned 8-bit, signed 16-bit, and/or 32-bit float 
> sample types with the surround configurations, then you only need the 
> AL_EXT_FLOAT32 and AL_EXT_MCFORMATS extensions.
>
>> 1. If I rename "soft_oal.dll" into "openAL32.dll", then everything is
>>     good: alIsExtensionPresent returns true
>> 2. If I install OpenAL from Creative and install soft_oal.dll the
>>     recommended way (I don't rename the dll, and just add it to System32
>>     on Windows), then alIsExtensionPresent never returns true
>>
>> I would like to use the second method which is the recommended way of
>> installing OpenAL Soft, and benefit from the OpenAL soft implementation
>> as well, but it doesn't seem to be working. Am I doing something wrong?
>
> For AL_SOFT_buffer_samples to be available, you need to open an OpenAL 
> Soft device (and unfortunately it doesn't currently append "on OpenAL 
> Soft" on the device names to differentiate them like it should). When 
> its used as soft_oal.dll, other non-ALSoft devices can still be 
> enumerated too and may be selected by default.
>
> For your particular use-case, since you rely on OpenAL Soft's 
> AL_SOFT_buffer_samples extension anyway, you could leave it named 
> OpenAL32.dll and have it put next to the app's executable (or wherever 
> the other local DLLs are put). It won't affect any system-installed 
> OpenAL, but your app(s) will only see OpenAL Soft.
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